


cogito ergo sum part 2

by anywherebuthere



Category: The X-Files
Genre: An X-File Case, Angst, F/M, Friendship, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-08
Updated: 2006-03-08
Packaged: 2019-04-28 04:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14441193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anywherebuthere/pseuds/anywherebuthere
Summary: A serial killer, someone from the past and a lot of angst push Mulder ans Scully into new places





	cogito ergo sum part 2

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

Chapter 7 

Jennifer Stradford was sitting in the backseat of the car. Johnson had wrapped a blanket around her, though it was quite warm outside. She knew her eyes looked swollen and puffy. Thoughts kept racing through her head, too fast to catch. But on the background there was one thought: why? All the time, through the million other thoughts racing, why, why, why? And what if. What If. What if... 

~ 
    
    
            Never, there have been so many seconds in a minute and never they have passed so quickly. The whole world has suddenly become a paradox. I feel drowned in the ambiguous feelings that floods me. My heart and watch are ticking in a competition to fill the silence, but they are mere whispers in the unending universe. The infinity of the inevitable scares me. I'm filled with either dread of what's to come or longing for it to happen just so that it's over. I don't know which one is eating my stomach and mind, but the interim is the worst. The only feeling I am sure of is helplessness, and it's the one feeling I can't deal with. Flashes of Fitzgerald's body trade places with her floating body, but the feeling is the same. I'm frozen, unable to move, useless, worthless. We did, and are still doing, everything we can, but my heart is not in it. I know the search is futile. The familiar twitch hasn't come, nor the realization that there's something I know that will help solve the case. Although hating that knowledge I'm also grateful for it and I feel dirty because of it. If there's not something I know I've missed, there's nothing that can let guilt enter my mind. Ambiguous. Guilt is what I'm living of, what I'm dying from. A paradox. She and I are all a paradox, for I live for the truth, but I live a lie of constant and conscious deceit and she declines the abstractness of my thinking yet lives because of believing in an abstract deity. She came for a lie and I want to believe.
            I stand and wait, wait till that knowledge that I don't have, does come to me, I stand and I wait and in the mean time, the hands of my watch make their rounds, like they have gone crazy, and they have.
            I know something is terribly wrong. The death of agent Fitzgerald is disturbing, very disturbing indeed, but it can't be all. Every time I see her, my heart clenches and I can't stop wishing for this case to finish. Everything started out so well, but I can't help feeling it has all gone terribly wrong. I have failed, I know I have. Even if I succeed in the end I will have failed in some ways, at least in preventing someone else to die. I'm not very upset about his death, and I feel ashamed about it, but the thought of relief, that it wasn't another agent, that it wasn't Scully is so overwhelming there isn't room for sorrow or mourning, just for this feeling of dread and horror.
            I'm moving now, joining Scully who's already investigating the scene of the crime. Her steps are determined, she strides forth as though she is convinced of the success of the case, even though I've failed. She's so much stronger than me. But, hardly noticeable to anyone but me, I see that her firm stride wavers as well, that she too has trouble moving forward. I walk up beside her, the increased speed of my pace costing me much more energy than it should. She slows down a bit, allowing me to catch up with her and this small gesture, warms my heart and the dread disappears for a small second. 
            She looks at me with that thoughtful look of her, that makes me feel like she can see right through me, and I think she does, because, right then, when the feeling of dread starts beating the feel of warmth again, she takes my hand and says, softly, only for us to hear.
            "We haven't failed, Mulder. Can't you feel it, there is still hope."
            Even though I know she is just saying this to make me feel better, and maybe to make herself believe it as well, the warmth comes back and it takes back a bit of my heart that has grown stone cold during this case. I now feel more strength to see it through to a good, as far as it can still be, end.
    

~ 
    
    
            When we arrived and passed all the obligatory red tape and identifying of ourselves, we saw him. He was lying there on the ground, boxes full of Chinese food next to him. I knew right then and there this was an image I would never be able to get out of my head. And I wasn't sure I wanted it to.
            Colton thankfully hadn't arrived yet, but Johnson had and he walked up to us, filling us in. He too had looked struck. He had told us that the cook of the Chinese takeout, where Fitzgerald had gotten the food, had found him when he was taking out the garbage. When the police had arrived at the scene they searched his pockets and had found out he was FBI, they had immediately called Johnson, who in turn had called us. He had arrived only 10 minutes earlier. And he had found a note. 
            Sorry, it had said.
            I find it hard to get into my routine. A colleague, a co-worker, it doesn't get much closer. But I know my job and I owe it to him. While I start investigating the crime scene, knowing that nothing will be found, Mulder is just standing there, thinking, and I wonder about what.
    

The food has cooled down. In this weather that would probably take about an hour, so he's at least an hour dead. But I could've felt that from the body. He is just lying there next to a container with a garbage bag standing beside it. I look at my watch. It's 9:12 pm. He left the station around 5:15. That's about 4 hours. I know we need to do better than that. I walk down the alley and see his car parked at the other side. A shortcut. I look around and realize there's no way forensics is going to find anything useful here. The alley is dirty. Overfilled garbage cans are everywhere. Rotting food that has fallen beside them is lying there mixing with the smell of urine. It's wistful. What a rotten place to die. 
    
    
            Mulder walks up beside me and I suddenly realize he too finds this really difficult. He looks so sad, so lost, so guilty. I want to say something that will make him feel better. Will make me feel better.
            "We haven't failed, Mulder. Can't you feel it, there is still hope."
    

~ 
    
    
            I talked to Jonhson, asking if the guy who'd found Fitzgerald has been interrogated. He said it had been done only shortly and I'm free to go ahead and do it. I walk to the Chinese restaurant. Closed, it says on the door. Inside, the cook in sitting on a chair. The girl behind the counter is standing in front of it. She has a hand on his shoulder and she seems to be at a loss of what to do or say.
            "Could you excuse us for a minute," I ask her. She walks away, seemingly relieved.
            "Mr....ehm."
            "Lee Chen."
            "Lee, I'm special agent Mulder from the FBI. I'd like to ask you some questions about tonight."
            "Hmm," he grunts in slight approval. 
            "Could you tell me how you found him?"
            "I, I was taking out the garbage. It was quiet."
            "What time was that?"
            "I don't know exactly. Around half 8 I guess."
            "And then?"
            "I walked there, the alley and ehm... I was in thoughts and I didn't see him until I started to put the bag in the container. He was, he was just lying there. And I thought he had passed out or something, so I slapped him on the cheek, but he wasn't responding. And then I saw the note, so I, I called you guys."
            "Did you recognize him?"
            "No, I was in the kitchen before I went outside, so I didn't see him. Jing-Mei might've," he indicates the counter girl.
            I walk over to her. She seems impressed by what has happened. I can't decide whether she's scared or excited. Maybe she can't either.
            "Are you Jing-Mei?" I ask. She nods. I get out a photo of Fitzgerald that Jonhson gave us.
            "Do you recognize this man?"
            Again she nods. Not a girl of many words apparently. It kind of explains why she didn't know what to say to Lee over there.
            "Where do you recognize him from?"
            "He bought food here." She has a high voice, which trembles. 
            "Can you tell me how late it was when he left here?"
            She shrugs. "Not sure, it was really busy. Round 6 I guess. I could check the counter. What did he buy?"
            "I know there were 12 boxes of them."
            She walks towards the counter, without a word. I guess she going to try.
    

~ 
    
    
            We meet up outside after a while. I ask Jonhson if Stradford shouldn't be here, but when he points her out, I see that she's not up to anything right now. I turn at Johnson again and see Mulder walking our way.
            "He paid at 6:34. They let you pay when the food is ready, so he probably left right after that. I guess it's safe to say he was murdered within 10 minutes after that. So around a quarter to seven," he says. "Which gives us..." he looks at his watch, " 45 hours and a quarter to find out who will be the next to disappear."
            Johnson and I nod. "I don't think forensics is going to find anything useful here. It's a mess, and they didn't find anything at the last couple of crime scenes either, so I don't think we should be too hopeful about that," I add.
            "He must have surprised him, huh. There's no sign of struggle and Fitzgerald seemed like a guy who could stand up for himself," Johnson throws in.
            "If our theory is right, that wouldn't be to hard. I guess the perp hid in the alley and attacked him from the back. He could've done it from a distance probably. Fitzgerald didn't stand a chance."
            I have to admit, I like the fact he said `our theory'. 
            "So what's next?" Johnson wants to know. He seems all to glad to hand over the case completely. This must've really spooked him too. 
            "We have to find a connection between the women that have disappeared, so hopefully we can predict who's going to disappear next. I think that's the main thing we have to focus on," I say.
            "We have to know where Fitzgerald was supposed to be in 45 hours," Mulder adds.
            Everyone turns quiet. We all know how impossible that is.
    

~ 
    
    
            We decided we would go back to the station to start with, and try to find out if any obvious connection would jump out of the files on these women. I told Johnson, I would take Jennifer Stradford with me, hoping I would get a chance to talk to her.
            We were now sitting in the car, and she was just staring straight ahead, not responding to anything. I decide to try.
            "Agent Stradford, Jennifer?" she doesn't respond. 
            "Jennifer, I know this must be really hard on you, but you have to know. It's not your fault."
            A single tear rolls down her cheek.
            "It's all right to be sad. It's perfectly normal to wish for it to not have happened. To think what if? But it's not your fault."
            She wipes the tear away. "I should've...."
            "It wouldn't have made a difference what any of us should've or would've done. The perp had his eye out for him. He knew he would be alone at that moment, that's how he works."
            "We should've caught him before he had a chance to....to..." she starts crying. "To kill John..." She's crying even harder.
            I pull over the car and feeling somewhat out of my element, I take her into my arms. "It's not our fault," I whisper in her ear again and again, hoping I'll believe it too after a while. 
            We sit like that for quite some time.
    

~ 

11:02 pm 

There's a huge table full of files in front of me. Scully and Stradford are sitting at it with me. We're all pretending to be reading, but I know none of us is capable of focusing right now. The shock of it is still too big. But time is ticking on and we're in a hurry. I sigh and start reading again. 8 murders, 6 missing person reports. The 7th we couldn't find, probably no one had noticed that woman had gone missing or they had just thought she'd gone off. The 8th would happen in a few hours. All women, but apart from that, I can't see any link. Ages vary between 19 and 52. Professions vary, where they live, what they like, their eye color, their hair color and their physique. They were all kidnapped or last seen in different places, at different times. There just doesn't seem to be a connection, but I know that's where we need to look. It's either that, or knowing where Fitzgerald was supposed to be 48 hours after he got killed. And that's predicting the future. If we know that, we know how the case is going to unfold and we wouldn't need to be investigating. I sigh. We need to find that connection. I throw myself at the files again. 

~ 

01:35 am 

I sent Jennifer home an hour ago. She needs sleep, though I doubt she will be getting any tonight. And we do to. I walk up to Mulder, but he's so absorbed by the files that he doesn't even notice me getting up. I doubt if he even knows Jennifer Stradford has left. I put my hand on his shoulder, to quietly get his attention and he jerks it away from me. I scared him. It's just me, I think. His shoulder relaxes underneath my hand. I squeeze it softly. "It's late Mulder, we need to be getting back to the hotel." 
    
    
            "We need to finish this," he replies, going against me. But he can't help yawning.
            "We need to go," I repeat. And I start collecting the files, removing my hand from his shoulder. He grabs it before I reach the files. My heart skips a beat.
            "We need to solve it," he says and his brown eyes look at me with so much pain and sincerity.
            "I know, and we're going to solve it"
            "I...," he drifts off. ...love you, a voice deep inside me finishes it for him. I take him to the hotel.
    
    

~ 

5:23 am 

I knew I couldn't sleep, and I don't. I sit and think, think until my brains don't want to think anymore. And then I think some more. But I don't see it, I don't know it. I've memorized the files about 6 times now. I keep rereading to see if I haven't missed something, though I know I haven't. I know I can't do anything until the morning when Scully comes to get me and we start interviewing family, friends or anyone who knew them. Or rather knows them, hopefully. I close my eyes and try to sleep. It's hopeless, though. I turn on the TV and hope something good is one. Or something not so good...anything. 

Chapter 8 

7:00 am 
    
    
            I knock on Mulder's door at exactly 7 am. I know he's awake. I myself could barely close my eyes and Mulder is usually worse. Jennifer is still sleeping in my bed. She knocked on the door around 4, apparently unable to sleep. She felt unsafe and frankly, I can't blame her, but luckily she fell asleep rather quickly in my bed. That didn't do my night rest much good either, but I couldn't find it in my heart to wake her up. I'll do it after breakfast and anyhow, there's a note telling her where we are.
            He opens looking disgruntled and I tell him too get dressed. Even his normal automatic eye-wiggle-response is absent. I wait while he puts on some clothes and we walk down to the breakfast buffet. I get plates for the both of us and fill them up. He needs to eat. When I put his plate down in front of him he just sits there and toys with his fork, absent-minded. I try to get some food in my stomach, but it's protesting as well. After I've forced down a cup of coffee and a croissant, I see Jennifer entering. I would wave at her to indicate where we are, but it feels too frivol. She sits down, not making any effort to get something to eat, so I offer her my plate. It's not like I'm going to finish it anyway. When I'm walking over to the buffet to get a cup of coffee for her, I see both of them sitting at our table. They're hunched over and their eyes are red. Mulder's from lack of sleep, Jennifer's from crying. Both of them are playing with their forks and staring into infinity. My heart goes out to them.
            We finish our breakfast and get ready for a new day. A horrible, scary, important, normal-looking day. 
    
    

~ 

7:56 am 
    
    
            We take one car to the station. It's not very convenient, but I think Scully didn't trust either one of us to drive. She's probably right. I feel some new energy taking possession of my body. It might've been the coffee or the bread we had, or it is the knowledge we can do something again. A new day, new opportunities, though many have been missed. Too many. And someone is dead because of it.
            We arrive and rush in. Johnson is standing in front of the conference room, waving at us. Inside he has already assembled 6 local police officers, 3 FBI agent and someone I don't think I can face right now, Tom Colton, who's positively gleaming because we have failed in preventing another victim. I have failed. 
            Everyone sits down and I start to walk to the front of the room when I see Colton has beat me to it. I stop dead in my feet. Everybody turns to him. He clears his throat.
            "Yesterday, every one of us was deeply shocked by the death of our valued and trusted colleague, Agent John Gerald Edward Fitzgerald. Assistant Director Skinner wants everyone to know he sends his deepest regards in this sad time."
            It's clear that he is trying his hardest to look affected and sad, but it's not exactly working.
            "Though this should be a time of mourning, we need to go on, for the sake of his memory, with our investigation. Because we understand how hard this is for the agents who worked closest with John: Jennifer Stradford, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder..."
            I know he stressed the Fox part.
            "...Assistant Director Skinner has put me in charge to lighten the load of these agents."
            "What?" I say before I even know it.
            Slowly Colton repeats this last sentence. I know he's enjoying it and that makes me even more furious.
            "Assistant Director Skinner has given the case back to me, agent Mulder."
            "He can't do that," I say furiously, though I know he can. And Colton knows it as well.
            "He can, agent Mulder."
            I want to yell some more at him, make my fist acquainted with his face, but before I get the chance, I feel Scully's soft hand on my back. I relax slightly and say a bit calmer.
            "We are the agents who have investigated so far. We know more about this case than anyone. We are the ones that cracked this case open."
            "Cracked open how, agent Mulder? I don't see much progress now."
            It feels like he punches me in the stomach. He's right. We didn't make much progress, because if we had, Fitzgerald wouldn't be getting a Y-incision right now. I sit down in defeat. Colton smiles slightly and resumed his monologue.
            "This is what we're going to do. Everyone is going to investigate a different kidnapping victim in pairs. Do it thoroughly and quickly. Find out anything there is to know about how and when they disappeared, what they did the days prior to it, and anything else. Also find out how well they knew the murder victims. We need to know how the killer picks them. The faster we go, the better. We don't want another kidnapping on our hands and maybe we can save some of those women, if they're still alive."
            He won't find them like this. He won't. The link is something not so obvious, something subtle, something that won't be found asking the obvious questions. 
            "We need to ask absolutely everything, any abnormality that happened during their life. Anything can be important," I say, standing again.
            Colton looks at me with a look that could kill. "As I said speed is the most important thing here. He probably selects these women because they fit a certain pattern that arouses him. That's what we need to know. Also, we need to find out where he picks them, where he observes them and meets them, so any common place these women go to, so we can go back there and catch the bastard."
            "He doesn't rape them. It's not out of sexual perversion, he kidnaps them."
            "I don't remember asking you anything, agent Mulder. I'm in charge now and according to my own profile and that of other, extremely capable, FBI profilers, this is the scenario. And I'm not about to let one out-there opinion from someone, everyone in the FBI knows to be a loon. If you don't conform to my rules, I'll see myself forced to remove you from this case." And I'm hoping you give me a reason to do that, I see him thinking.
            I want to give him plenty of reasons, but the thought of Fitzgerald and the next victim, keep me from it. There's no way Colton is ever going to catch the killer without me.
            Colton has apparently finished his talk and is now handing out stacks of paper to all the officers. I hear him calling out the names of the people that will be working together. When he calls Scully's name as the one, working with him, I'm not sure if I'm very surprised. Disappointed, yes. Though it might be a good thing. At least now I know there are two teams asking the right questions.
    
    

~ 

9:47 am 
    
    
            She's been crying for half an hour now. We don't have time for this. I feel for her, of course I do, but she's sobbing uncontrollably and it has to stop.
            "Mrs. Tenney."
            "My p...p...poor baby," she cries and starts another hysterical crying fit.
            "Mrs. Tenney," I say with a bit more force.
            She doesn't even hear me.
            "Mrs. Tenney," I say even louder. But she still decides to not hear me.
            "Mrs. Tenney," I now practically scream next to her ear. It startles her so much, she forgets that she's crying. She looks at me, with big eyes, red from her emotional outburst.
            "Can you just stop crying and answer some questions. That way we can help your daughter and maybe even get her back for you," I say sternly, because apparently being nice isn't the way to go with this woman.
            "What do you want to know?" she says in a sad, shaky voice, still sniffing a bit.
            Colton, who has been standing in the corner, defeated by so much emotion, now came close again.
            "Can you tell me about the day your daughter disappeared?" he asks, immediately taking over the interview. 
            "Well..." _snurf_ , "It was really sad, because I'd just gotten her back you know."
            "What do you mean?"
            "She had been in a coma for three months after a car accident and she had only been awake for two months. She was finally recuperating and able to do things by herself again and then this happened. It was her first drive alone since the accident, and she was a bit scared. Perfectly normal of course, because who wouldn't be scared to drive a car after you have had such a horrible accident, like she had. The poor thing. Luck just isn't on her site. She had of course been in a car, but it had always been Mr. Jenkins who had driven. Mr. Jenkins is our neighbor. Such a kind man, he helps me out when I need it, because I never learned to drive myself. My husband always thought that wasn't necessary for a woman. And it wasn't, at least not before he died three years ago. That was awful..."
            I know this is going to be a very long story if we don't guide it a bit in the right direction.
            "She was driving alone, Mrs. Tenney?"
            "Yes, yes, she was. Courageous child she is. She was on her way to see a friend who lives about an hour away, near Woodstock. Said it was time she went out and did things again, she said, the poor thing. She took the 14 I think. She left around 9:45."
            So she would've been on the 14 around 10:15. It would've been quiet, not much traffic around. She got a flat tire, Mrs. Tenney tells us, the poor thing. And then someone, some crazy person takes her child, the poor thing. Of course Mrs. Tenney tells us this in a bit more elaborate form. So around 10:15, Ms. Tenney would have been on the side of the 14, which was very quiet. And if Derek Livingston hadn't been killed two days before, he would have been driving the 14 around that time on his way to his girlfriend. Derek would have stopped and helped the nice lady on her way again, so she would arrive safely at her friend's place. But Derek wasn't there. Derek was dead. And there was no one, except the perpetrator, on the 14 to help her.
    
    

~ 

15:21 pm 

Most of the police officers and FBI agent are at the station, typing reports, bringing Colton up to speed and searching for a connection. Mulder and Jennifer aren't back yet. I'm guessing they're conducting their interrogation a bit more thoroughly than the rest of us. When Mrs. Tenney had finished her story, we left, without asking her much else, in spite of my protests. Colton wouldn't listen to me though and pulled rank on me. If I had been Mulder, I would have stayed, despite what Colton might've said, or threatened with. But I'm not him, unfortunately, so here I am, reading as much of the reports as I can. 

There's a notepad in front of me and a pen in my mouth, which I'm chewing to bits. I know I have to look at this rationally. I have to use Mulder's profile and get in his head, but Mulder's profile was made before we knew of the link between the killings and the kidnappings, so it's not of a lot of use. The perp kidnaps people and doesn't want witnesses, so he kills those who would be in his way. We need to know why he abducts them. Mulder said in his profile he works towards a goal, and what he does, killing, abducting, is all in the name of that cause. He also said this goal is most likely personal, family related. So he needs those women for his cause, which brings me to the next question. Why these women? What special trait do they possess that makes him chose them or is it just completely random. I find that hard to believe. If indeed he works towards something, he will be very careful in assuring the process runs smoothly, so he will want women that fit this procedure. I first thought he might be looking for women that won't be missed that much, but that's not consistent with what I heard today. Mrs. Tenney, despite what other traits she might have, certainly wants her daughter back. Also from some of the other reports I've read, this doesn't seem to be the case. The only thing I can think of is that these women have something special in common, something that makes them especially suitable for whatever goal he has in mind. And if Mulder is right, that goal could be some kind of research. I look down at what I've written. I don't know. I just don't know. I'm interrupted in my impotent thoughts by one of the police officers who walks up to me and tells me Colton wants to speak to me. I sigh, get up and walk to his newly created office in the conference room. 
    
    
            "You could knock, you know," he says curtly, when I walk in.
            "What did you want to see me about?" I reply, equally snappy.
            "Do you know where agent Mulder is? He's taking an awfully long time interrogating the, ehm..." He flips through some papers. "...the kid sister of Maria Sanchez."
            "No"
            "No, what?"
            "I don't know," I turn and start to walk out, when Colton calls after me.
            "Dana"
            "What?" I say, more pissed than I should be.
            "Can't we just leave our differences behind us? I mean, you, as a smart woman, should be able to see that I'm not the asshole here. I've got justified reasons to not get along with agent Mulder."
            Yeah, like Mulder stepped on his inflated ego and punctured some big holes in it.
            "Frankly, I'm worried about agent Mulder. I think he's losing it with this case. Skinner obviously thinks so as well, otherwise he wouldn't have put me back in charge. Agent Mulder has made leaps and assumptions in this case that I don't think are accurate or justified and he's endangering the investigations because of that. Also, he's not following direct orders."
            He gets up from behind his improvised desk and walks up to me. 
            "Dana, I know Mulder is having a rough time because of what there is between us." He puts his hand on my shoulder and stands even closer.
            I shrug it off and take a step back.
            "What do you mean with `what there is between us'. There isn't anything between us, and I don't think there ever was."
            "I can feel it."
            "Then you should work on that, because there's nothing to feel."
            "It is because of him?"
            "Is what because of who?" My voice gets louder by the second as I see where this conversation is going.
            "That you can't open your heart to me. Is it because of Mulder? I know some things have happened between us, but I also see how you look at me..."
            Yeah, angry.
            "Are you feeling guilty towards him, because there's something going on between you two?"
            "Tom, listen to me for once," I practically scream, "I'm not involved with Mulder, nor do I have any intentions in that direction."
            I'm full-fledged screaming now.
            "And I most definitely have no nice feelings whatsoever towards you. You screwed us over with this case. You lied to us and took credit for what we've done. We could've gotten you fired, but we didn't and then you start acting like an ass again towards Mulder. If I have any feelings for you, they're the murderous kind."
            I turn around, march out and slam the door shut. I'm almost exploding with anger, fuming. The bastard, the ass, the total jerk, the... Then I bump into a very surprised Mulder.
    
    

~ 

19:06 pm 

I'm sitting with Scully and Stradford behind a huge stack of files, trying to read through all of them. She told me about Colton and I can't believe he is actually a bigger jerk than I thought him to be. I didn't know that was possible. Someone walks in with a pile of sandwiches and suddenly I feel my stomach protesting. I'm hungry. I haven't eaten anything since this morning and that wasn't much to begin with, so I walk to the pile and grab a bunch for the three of us. Stradford seems to be holding herself up pretty well, though Scully told me she slept in her room last night. I remember what it was like for me when I lost a colleague through a mistake of mine and my heart goes out to her. 
    
    
            Time is passing by too quickly, I can't get hold of it. And still nothing. I did a thorough investigation this morning, well into the afternoon, but Colton has assigned me to the case with the least to go on. The sister just hadn't known much. They didn't have that much contact. We asked everything, but the only thing that became clearer was that she just wasn't going to be a lot of help. She didn't know her sister's friends, her whereabouts, nothing. It wasn't much of a surprise she was only called in missing after two weeks.
            I'm reading and reading, trying to find something, in the other files, but just as I expected Colton's agents didn't ask any of the questions I want the answers to. They asked about enemies, about if they knew the murder victims, but naturally, the answer was negative. No, no real enemies. Well, maybe the crazy neighbor who doesn't like that the big tree loses his leaves in his garden every fall. And no, never heard of him. No, never been there. No, no idea. It's futile. I read some more.
    
    

~ 

23:16 pm 

We arrive at the hotel. I practically had to force Mulder out of the police station again and he has been reading in the car all the way to the hotel. But I am too caught up in this case to make a remark about it. So little time left, only nineteen and a half hour. Less than a day. Time is going so fast and we're nowhere near finding a link. We don't even know where to look for one. Jennifer is staring out of the window, distracted, like she has been all day. Perfectly understandable, but she isn't helping the case. She refused to step back though and that's understandable too. She wants to revenge his death. She wants to catch the killer and make sure he pays for what he did. And so do we. 

I look at the other corner of the car. Empty. Fitzgerald should've been here. It's his place and now it's empty. I feel empty too. 

~ 

3:51 am 

I tried to, but I can't sleep. I keep rereading the files and my notes. I can't get it out of my head. Jennifer couldn't keep her eyes open when we got here and I put her in my bed again. The emotions of the day must've exhausted her. I get up and walk around a bit and then decide to go to Mulder's room. He's probably wide-awake as well. I put on my bathrobe, take my notes with me and walk to his door. I knock and when I hear a distinct mumble I walk in. Mulder's sitting up straight in bed, TV on, case files all around him in what seems to be an unorganized mess. 
    
    
            "I couldn't sleep," I say, redundantly.
            "Me neither," he replies.
            I sit down next to him, companionably. I put my notes in a neat pile next to his mess. We watch the infomercials together in silence. 
            "Fifteen hours," he says and doesn't need to explain.
            I nod and look at him. His hair is messy, the brown eyes look very tired and he's got a frown of worry in his forehead. This case has hit us way too close at home. I know he sees his worst fears reflected in Jennifer now. And he sees his own failure becoming too obvious for him too stand. I try to resist the temptation to stroke his cheek to comfort him, but I can't. Whole my heart goes out to him. He gives me a little thank-you smile.
            I turn back to the infomercials and we sit in silence for a while. Everything I try to think of something to say, all I can come up with is something along the lines of: `what do we do?', or `it's hopeless'. So I say nothing.
            "Scully?" he starts.
            I look at him again.
            "I'm afraid," he says simply.
            "Me too."
            And then he moves towards me and takes me in his arms. Or I take him, I'm not sure. We hold each other for a while until he loosens his grip and lets his head fall into my lap. The feeling of dread can't disappear, it's there at the background continuously. But for a moment it seems to lighten. After a couple minutes I want to ask Mulder if he thinks it going to be all right, mostly to comfort myself, but he isn't responding anymore. He's sleeping.
    

Chapter 9 

11:49 am 

A elaborate speech by Colton keeps us from getting to work this morning. Familiar anger starts to settle inside me as I think about all the time we're losing over his ego-tripping. Specific orders, directing us to ask about their hobbies, their families and other such normal facts, are meant to mask that Colton has no idea whatsoever where to look. My anger subsides somewhat however when I hear Jennifer and I can go interview the live-in boyfriend of one of the victims. That at least seems more promising then yesterday's sister. The traffic is bad once we get in the car and too much time is wasted before we get to the sign having 148 on it, telling us we're there. 
    
    
            I knock on the door and a thirty-something guy opens. We introduce ourselves and he invites us in.
            "Some colleagues of yours were here yesterday as well. Didn't you guys get all the information you wanted?"
            "We still have a few questions left," I nod and sit down on the couch offered.
            "Mr. Palmer, isn't it?"
            "You can call me Robin."
            "I was wondering. What do you think happened to Alison?" 
            All the questions about her disappearance had been asked yesterday. Maybe he could shine a light on it.
            "Well, at first I just thought she was late from work. But after half an hour I began to worry. You know, she walks back from work, insisting it's too short a distance to drive. I used to tell her she could be hurt. Since you never know what kind of folks are out there, but she just shrugged it of." 
            He sighs.
            "You know, this is the one time I hate to be right."
            He looks very sad now.
            "When she wasn't home after an hour and wasn't answering her work phone nor her cell, I called the cops. They said she was probably just at a friend's place or something. But I knew that wasn't the case. When she wasn't home the next day, they started the investigation, but I don't think they tried very hard. They thought she'd just gone of..."
            "Why would they think that?"
            "Well, she has the odds against her."
            He sighs again, looking hesitant to tell this.
            "She had done it before. Years back. She was having some psychiatric difficulties then, bipolar, but with the new medicine that was all under control. She wasn't experiencing any troubles with that anymore. It's just not fair. Why her? She's already been through so much."
            "How do you know she didn't stop taking her medication?"
            "She did that in the beginning a couple of times, so she made a habit out of always taking it when I was with her. So I could kind of check on her. But also, I know she didn't walk away, because she didn't take her medication with her. She's a diabetic you know. She was diagnosed with it 5 years ago, so she has to take insulin shots. But she left those here and didn't take the ones at work either. She didn't take any with her, except perhaps what was in her purse, but that is usually only one shot. She wouldn't run of without them."
            "Why not? If she was confused..."
            "In the beginning, when the medicine for her bipolarity weren't working that well, she didn't take the shots in time. So to make up for it she took two at the same time. She got a hypo in her sleep and went into a coma. She woke up after only three weeks. That's why I'm so worried as well. If she's still..."
            He stops, not wanting to say what he's going to, then takes a deep breath and continues.
            "If she's still alive, she's probably in a bad shape. She needs these medications. God, I hope you find her."
            He hides his face in his hands. I'm not sure what to do, but then Stradford surprises me. She walks up to him and puts an arm around his shoulder.
            "We're going to do our best to bring her home to you, safe and healthy. We will..."
            He looks up to her, tears in his eyes.
            "We have to," she finishes and I see glistening behind her eyes as well.
    
    

~ 

14:52 pm 

We sit in the car. She looks distant, sunken into wistful thoughts and I know it's my place to say something, comfort her in some way. I don't know how. Scully is better in these things, she knows the right things to say, to do, but I'm afraid I will only make it worse. I hesitate for another minute what I should do. "I can understand how you must feel," I start awkwardly. She looks at me sideways, but doesn't talk herself. She seems to doubt my assessment. "I...I don't know if you know, but early on in my career, when I was still in the VCS, we were chasing a killer, John Barnett. I profiled him, we got on his trail and set up a bust. Only things didn't go as we expected." She looking at me with mild interest now. "Barnett took a hostage. I hesitated. Long enough for Barnett to make his move. He shot the hostage and another agent, Steve Wallenberg. He had a wife and two kids. I still feel guilty about it." She's still looking at me, not saying a word. Again I doubt if I have done the right thing by telling her this. She doesn't need other people's misery on top of hers. "I feel guilty," she states softly after a minute or so. Glad I finally have some response, I answer. "I've lived with guilt over this my entire life. It wasn't my fault. Technically speaking it wasn't my fault. With you... You couldn't have done anything to prevent him from dying, because I know you would have. Guilt is the most immobilizing emotion of all. Maybe you need to make the conscious move of leaving the guilt behind you, while you still can. Even though it's so fucking hard. Especially when it's as misplaced as right now." "I don't know if I can."  
"Try..." I say softly, feeling a bit hypocrite. We arrive at her mother's place, one of those places that can't be belong to anyone but a mother. When she opens the door and we step into the living room I half expect tea and cookies waiting for us. She is too distraught to offer though. 
    
    
            Mrs. Ryan herself is also the motherly type and I immediately picture her in the kitchen making the cookies for the tea herself. My mother wasn't exactly that type.
            Now she's sitting opposite us and answering our questions, but I find it hard to concentrate. The hour is drawing nearer. Five and a half hours. So much can happen in five and a half hours, but so little as well. 
            Mrs. Ryan doesn't seem to be able to give us any useful information. She answers the questions, but she doesn't tell us anything Robin didn't tell us before. She misses her dearly though, that's obvious and for a second I wonder if my mother would've missed me that much, if she missed Samantha like that. I don't even miss her that much.
            Costly time is passing and we're not getting anywhere. Either we're just asking the wrong questions, and then we're never going to find out, or we've already found the link and just haven't recognized it as such. I don't know why, but my gut instinct is telling me it's the latter and we need to go back and find it.
            A short `thank you' and a well-meant `we're going to do all we can' is enough to end the conversation and I suddenly can't wait to get back to the station. I'm getting surer by the second. We've already found the answer, I just don't know that's it.
    
    

~ 

16:51 pm 
    
    
            It took us more than an hour and a half to get back from Mrs. Ryan to the station, because the traffic was so heavy. I drove so I didn't have the chance to read the files. Stradford didn't seem capable yet, so I had to. But I drove erratically as well. Impatient to get back to the station and find it. For some reason I was convinced the answer was there and I was determined to find it.
            Finally I'm sitting here with all my files in front of me. Colton and Scully are still out, but I hope they get back soon, or rather, Scully gets back soon. I go through them and then I see a handwritten paper, Scully's handwriting. It's her notes on the case and I wonder how they got mixed up with my files. I read them and somehow they confirm what I was already thinking. Research. Her notes seem to end rather abruptly and I wish she'd continued the line of thought. It is here. I feel it. I start reading the files again. What trait do these women have that could be useful in research.
    
    

17:29 pm 
    
    
            I stare at the paper and I know I've found it, but I have some trouble believing it. This is it. This is what he wants in these women. Why, I still don't know, but I know this is it. At the same time I feel a horrible feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. If this is the criterion by which he picks the women, then I know another woman who fits that criterion and...God...what if she's the next one?
            I glance at my watch. One hour and fifteen minutes. Is it enough?
            I grab my cell phone to call Scully, but then Colton walks in and for the first time in my life I'm happy to see him. Because Scully's with him. But no one else walks in the door and I run up to him.
            "Where's Scully?" I yell.
            "Agent Mulder, I'd like you to try and be civil to me."
            "Where's Scully, you bastard," I grab him by his collar and push him up against the wall. Three agents grab me and hold me back so I can't punch him in the face. All my anger is flooding out of me. He's gasping for breath and when he finally speaks he's still not answering.
            "Why do you need to know agent Mulder?"
            "Just answer me, you asshole, where is she?"
            "Answer my question agent Mulder."
            I give in.
    

"She's next. She's his next victim."  
"And how do you know that?" he still says with an infuriating calmness. 
    
    
            "They've all been comatose. That's why he wants them. He wants to experiment on them, because they've been in a coma."
            "You know that for a fact?" he says, with still an air of calmness though I can see he's slowly starting to panic too.
            "Alison Ryan and Carol Tenney, they've been in a coma. And so has Scully. So where is she."
    
    Colton looks timid now. Partly not wanting to believe it, partly knowing that it's true. "She got a call from the pathologist, Hughes, who told her she needed to come over, because she had found something."
            "How late was that?"
    
    "About an hour ago. We were near so I dropped her off and then came here. She said she left her car there anyway and could pick it up."
            I remember. Last time Cindy Hughes had offered her a ride and she had taken it, wanting to discuss the case in more depth. We hadn't had the chance to pick it up yet. I grab my keys and run out of the door. It's a 40-minute ride to the morgue, but I know there isn't time. I start the car and drive off, not caring how many laws I'm breaking.
    
    

~ 

18:02 pm 
    
    
            My brakes squeak when I pull up at the morgue. I tried Scully's cell about a dozen times on the way over, but it isn't answering. The morgue is underground though, so she probably doesn't have coverage there. My heart is pumping with fear. I can't lose her. 
            I run in, not paying any attention to the doorkeeper who's probably telling me I can't go in. I run trough a couple of doors until I'm there, but there's no one. My heart skips a couple of beats when fear grabs me again. Where is she? I look at my watch. It's not time yet, but the dreadful feeling doesn't lift. Where are they, where is she? I run back to the doorkeeper and, trying to catch my breath I ask him where special agent Scully with the FBI and Cindy Hughes are.
            "Who wants to know?"
            I go through my pockets, trying to find my badge. I nearly put it in his mouth while I loudly repeat my question.
            "It's important, where are they?"
            He looks at my badge with some distrust, but then decides it looks real.
    

"They left."  
"When? How long ago?" 
    
    
            He flips through his papers terribly slow.
            "Fifteen minutes ago."
            "Do you know how they left? Did they leave together?" I ask hopeful, against better judgment
            "Ms Hughes offered to give her a ride, but she refused, she said she would take her own car that had been standing here for a couple of days."
            "Do you know where she went?"
            "No, sorry," he looks at me with wonder.
            "What is so important, Sir?" he asks, but I'm already running off.
    

~ 

18:20 pm 
    
    
            I rush over the road back to the station, hoping I will catch up with her, before she...before he takes her. That thought is almost too much to bear. I look for the green sedan we rented when we first got here, but it's nowhere to be seen. At every green car my heart jumps, but it's never Scully. Her cell phone still isn't answering, and I don't know why. She should have coverage here. 
            I don't see her, what if I don't ever... Don't go there. I have to keep looking, I have to find her. I'm driving like crazy to catch up with her, but I still don't spot the car. I awful suspicion arouses in me. What if she took a detour? What if she went by the hotel, or some sort of shop, or where ever? What if she's not here on this road and I'm missing her because of that? 
    
    

~ 

18:32 pm 

I drive on, I'm almost at the station. I call Stradford, to see if Scully is there, but she declines. Before she can ask anything I hang up. Then I'm suddenly sure. Her cell phone doesn't have coverage. The only place it doesn't would be someplace like the morgue. Maybe she left it there. Maybe she went back to get it. I step on the brakes to catch an exit so I can turn and go back. I step on the gas again, going at least 40 miles too fast. I don't care. 

~ 

18:41 pm 
    
    
            I run in and grab the doorkeeper.
            "Where is she?"
            "Who?"
            "Agent Scully! Has she been there since I left?"
            "Yeah, she was here five minutes ago, she forgot her cell phone."
            I let go of him and run out again, racing off. One minute. Maybe not even.
    
    

~ 

18:55 pm 

Again I'm nearing the station. Nowhere. No green sedan. I smash the steering wheel and drive on. Maybe I'm not too late. Maybe. 

~ 

19:38 pm 

Too late. Too late, but I can't give up hope. I drive on. Back and forth, looking for different routes. 

~ 

20:01 pm 
    
    
            I hear the sirens behind me, but I don't want to stop. On and on, I want to go, until I find her. I can't find her.
            Finally the two cars have forced me to the site of the road. I want to escape, go on, but I'm stuck. I sit back in defeat. I was too late.
            A police officer walks up to me, but I don't want to explain. Then I see Johnson, Colton and Stradford following him. The young officer opens my door and all of them look at me, unsure of what to do or say. I don't know either.
            "He took Scully," I finally say.
    
    

~ 

We sit at the police station and more and more it becomes apparent that Mulder is right. She isn't going to show up here. Her cell phone isn't answering, her car hasn't been seen. An APB has been put out. Mulder is just sitting in a chair staring at the files, but I don't think he's reading, I don't think he can focus. He must be thinking along the same lines as I am. What if John hadn't died? What if we had never started this case? What if we had just done something differently? 

~ 

Out of the corner of my eye I see Colton walk in and all my emotions right now come together in one ball of fire, all focused on him. Why did he leave Scully alone when he knew someone was going to be taken? I stand up and walk towards him. He sees me coming and backs away, putting a table in between us. The young officer that was in one of the police cars that stopped me sees us and gets up to intervene when necessary. 
    
    
            "How could you leave her, when you knew what was going on? How could you?" I say loudly, unable to keep the emotion out of my voice.
            "How could I know that she was the one who was going to be taken? We didn't know the connection!"
            "If Fitzgerald had been alive, he would've been with her. That should've given you a clue," I shout.
            "If that was so obvious, than why did you leave her alone?"
            I want to yell back at him, but I know he's right. I'm so angry with him, because I'm so angry with myself. Why didn't I see?
            "You assigned me to Stradford, and yourself to Scully. It was your responsibility!" I finally reply.
            "Like that normally stops you."
            He is so cocky I could beat him up, but he's so right, so fucking right and I hate him even more for that. I am so angry right now. I couldn't prevent Scully being taken. I couldn't prevent Fitzgerald getting murdered. What kind of agent am I? And what kind of asshole is he, pointing that out to me. I shove the desk that is in between us towards him, hoping it will hurt him. I grab my files and storm out. I need to be alone, I need to think, that's the only way I can get Scully back. I'm barely halfway to the hotel when my phone rings. For a split second I think its Scully calling to tell she's had a flat tire or something and everything is fine, but then I see it's Stradford.
            "Agent Mulder, it's Jennifer Stradford."
            "What is it?" I say curtly.
            "Agent Scully's car has been found. Abandoned. Not far of the main road from the morgue to the station. Johnson and Colton are on their way over."
            "Have they found ehm...anything specific?" I wanted to say blood, but I can't get it out of my mouth.
            "No, not what I've heard."
            "Thanks, well, keep me posted." I hang up. I know what I have to do.
    

~ 

Whole my life so many things have made me insecure. That's me, that's who I am. I've always admired your air of self-assurance. You seem to carry yourself through life, not worrying too much about what others think of you. On the other hand, I don't give a damn what people say about me, and you desperately seek their approval. We've both got both sites. But you, you've always been sure of yourself. Who you are, what you do. You know that and you feel confident about it. You just feel insecure, because you're not sure others see it as well, and you want them to, you want their approval. I've always seen it, Scully and you've always had my approval. 
    
    
            I don't know who I am, I don't know why I do the things I do. My life is a mystery to me. At one moment I seem to know what I want, but it can chance the next. And I never know the why. I come up with reasons, Samantha, The Truth, different things, but I'm never sure they're the real reasons. I'm too busy feeling insecure about all those things that I don't have time to worry about what others might think of me. Except you, Scully. I need your approval. And I need you.
            Failure. I've failed now. I should've prevented this from ever happening. I should've done something, but what? Failure is a horrible feeling. I've failed so many people in my live, I've grown accustomed to it. Except with you. I still can't deal with failing you. And I have now, terribly so. I should've...I should've... I don't know what, but I should've.
            
            I'm in the hotel room, trying to ignore memories and visions of your in this room. I need to get you back. All the women he took were comatose, I know that, but I still need to prove it and I need to know why. The easiest way to find out, and the least time consuming, is the hospital records, but of course, they're private and I can't get access to them. But I know some people who can. 
            The phone rings 8 times before they pick it up and I have to wait another 3 minutes for them to make the line secure. 
    

"Can I finally talk?"  
"Mulder, good to talk to you again. Yeah, the line is secure," It's Byers who answers the phone. I hear talking in the background, so Frohike and Langly are butting in as well. 

"I need some information." 

"Don't you always. What do you need to know?" Frohike has taken over the phone. 
    
    
            "I've a great new site, with all kind of nice redheaded ladies, I can..."
            I cut him off.
            "Frohike, let me talk to Byers again, I'm not in the mood."
            I hear Frohike mumbling something that sounds like cranky, and not getting enough in the background.
            "What can we help you with, Mulder?"
            "I need you to pull hospital records on a few women."
            "That shouldn't be too hard, done in half an hour. Do you want us to fax it over to you?"
            "That would be great."
            "Why do you need them? Maybe we can help you with something else."
            I can't deal with telling them about Scully right now. 
            "It's just the case, I've got an idea and I need to see if I'm right. I need to see if these women were perhaps comatose."
            "Well, coming up," I hear noise on the phone and a couple of hushed voices fighting.
            "You sure we can't do anything else. Something a bit more interesting and challenging?" Langly has taken over the phone. "We could check out who else has been in a coma or something?"
            For the first time in his life, Langly has actually had a great idea. What if the perp needs these women to research on, because he wants to know more about comas? Why would he want to do that? Only if he had some personal reason. Someone close to him that has been comatose.
            "That would be great. Just see who's been in a coma the last couple of years in the region of Chicago."
            "That would take us a couple of hours."
            "Well, it's important. Get it to me ASAP"
            I give them the fax number of the police station and hang up. I decide to go back there since it isn't exactly legal what I'm doing and I better be the one that gets the papers. A glimmer of hope sneaks into my heart. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is a way to get her back.
    

Chapter 10 

I wake up. It's dark, so dark. This can't be right. 
    
    
            It must be midnight, but I don't know how. My head hurts. I move my arms but they won't react. They feel numb and lazy, but also restricted. This can't be right. 
            What gave me a headache like this? What made my arms feel like this? I don' remember. Oh God, I don't remember. This can't be right. 
            Think, think. We were on a case. Yes, on a case. Something must have happened. Why can't I remember? I must be drugged. That explains why my head is so fuzzy, why it hurts, why my limbs are so numb. But how? The case, it must have something to do with the case. The last thing I can remember is, I don't know, Cindy, the morgue. I got back there, left my cell phone. My phone. I try to move my arms but still can't. I feel something cutting in my wrists. A rope. I've been tied up. This can't be right.
            I'm lying on something soft. A pillow, a blanket, maybe even a mattress. I can't remember what happened after I left the morgue. I got in my car and then...nothing. I consciously open my eyes, but it's still dark. I suddenly get scared, thinking I might've gone blind. I close my eyes. I've got a splitting headache. I turn my head and open my eyes again. I feel relief when I see a thin strip of light. It looks like a crack beneath a door. It hurts my head too much to look at it for  too long so I close them again. Ten, fifteen minutes later, I can only guess, the door opens and light floods in the room. Then it turns dark again.
    

~ 

I wait by the fax for the records I was promised. Time goes by so slowly, I want to do something, but I don't know what else there is to do. The answer is in those records, I know it, I feel it in every cell of my brain. 
    
    
            Colton walks over to me, not as cocky as before. He swallows hard before he starts to speak.
            "Agent Mulder, it's after midnight, maybe you should go to the hotel. You can let me handle this. I'll make sure Dana gets home safe."
            "I'm staying on this case, you've done enough Colton. I'm going to do everything to get Scully back."
            "I don't think it's wise to let you continue this case. You're too close involved. First Fitzgerald, I saw how you were affected by his death. And Dana, we both feel really bad about her disappearance. You can trust me enough to get her back."
            I raise my voice. "I'm staying on this case. You don't even know half how bad I feel about Scully's disappearance. I doubt you even feel bad that she's gone. You feel bad you screwed up this case so thoroughly, that you can forget every chance of ever making a career in the FBI."
            "Just like you," he says back coarsely.
            Suddenly the fax begins beeping. I glance down on the paper that's coming out and I see it's a note from the Lone Gunmen. I decide I need to get Colton's attention away from those faxes so I angrily walk to his desk.
            "Oh, that's what you fear. Getting buried in the basement just like Spooky Mulder. Or do you secretly want that if that means working closely with Dana Scully."
            It works, he briefly glances at the fax, but immediately turns his attention back to me. 
            "You can flatter yourself as much as you want to, but I will never be like you."
            "No, you won't, you lack the brains for that."
            That hurt his ego. I see him getting angrier and angrier. 
            "You're to stop investigating this case immediately. I've talked to A.D. Skinner and he okayed it." 
            I know he's bluffing, I know he hasn't talked to Skinner yet. He can't lose me. He can't solve this case without me. So without me, he can never take credit for it. But I've hurt his ego enough for him to forget that. He will call Skinner and he will have arranged taking me of the case in no time. I've got enough personal involvement to warrant that. And Skinner knows me, he knows what lengths I will go to to get Scully back. But it's the only way. 
            The fax has stopped bleeping and I've decided what I need to do. I grab my keys and files and before Colton knows what's happening I grab the papers in the fax tray and storm out. I don't care what the consequences are, this is the only way I'm going to get Scully back and if it means getting thrown out of the FBI, it's worth it. 
            "If you take those files, you'll never set a foot in the Hoover building again, except for your resignation meeting," I hear Colton calling after me when I head out of the door. I bet he wishes he knew what was in those papers I took. But he doesn't and he won't know what's in them until I have Scully back with me. If she's still alive...a nagging voice says. But she must be, because somehow I doubt I would still be if she isn't.
            I barely take the time to close the door, before I look at the files in front of me. It's here, I'm so close now. It won't take long and I'll have Scully back. But then I look at the pile of files in front of me and all hope I had the minute before flows out of me. They're way more cases of comatose people then I could have expected. The list of the disappeared women is encouraging. All except one have been comatose since they were born. And of the one, the note by Byers says, the hospital records couldn't be found. So at least I know I'm on the right track. But there are so many files of others. Men, women, young old, from everywhere around the country, now living in Chicago. And Chicago is a big city. Then there's the question of the relationship of this supposed person to the perp. Is she, or he, his daughter, wife, aunt, neighbor, who knows. How am I ever going to find out if any of these people in these files have a connection to some mad scientist? 
            It's going on eleven when I sit down in my hotel room to read through the records. Name after name, file after file, I sort them into piles. There's only one quality my mystery person seems to have. She's a woman. 
    

I look at the reasons of the comas of the abducted women and there's no real common cause. Three, four including Scully, but I still rather not include her, got in a coma because of unknown reasons. So I make a separate pile of records that fit that category, intending to start with that first. Until I notice a lot of comas are caused by unknown factors and that pile is the fastest growing. After about an hour I look at my alarm clock, which says it's 3:54. I'm barely at a third and it's hard to keep my eyes open. Since the beginning of this case I haven't slept much and it's starting to catch up with me. The ambiguity about it doesn't escape me and I sigh when I realize the only time I really want to sleep is when I can't. Tired, I turn back to my files. I need to go on. I wish Scully was here. I need to talk to her about this case, about how I feel, about everything. Stupid how I don't value talking to her until she's not there. My heart clenches when a wave of loneliness floods me and I realize how much I miss her. So clich, so true. I can't live without Scully. I read on with silent tears rolling over my cheeks. 

~ 

I wake up with a start when I hear a knock on the door. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and walk over to the door. I'm still wearing clothes, a wrinkled shirt I might've been wearing longer than a day and night already, and wrinkled pants to match. My entire body hurts from the awkward position I've been sleeping in and from the pain of missing. I glance in the mirror and see the red streak across my face where I've been lying on one of the papers. Slowly I open the door, reluctant to start another day, yet desperate to get started. 
    
    
            It's Stradford, looking worried and just as awful as me. She appears to have slept even less than me last night, her eyes are red and puffy. She's been crying.
            I silently invite her in, wondering what she's here for. Too late I realize Colton might've sent her to get the files back, but she doesn't seem the least bit interested in them. She sits down at the edge of the bed, the only place, apart from where I was sitting, that is not covered in paper.
            "I'm so sorry," she says, on the verge of tears again.
            "About what?" I can't for the life of me think of what she might feel guilty about.
            "About not standing up for you against agent Colton. He acted outside his boundaries. He's probably just really worried about you and agent Scully."
            I realize she has no idea of what's going on between Colton and us. Me. Colton and me now. I feel a stab in my heart.
            "And about agent Scully's disappearance. You must feel really helpless now." She looks more like the one that is feeling helpless and I suddenly see how hard this all must be on her. She started out innocently, excited, untouched by the world of evil. Many dreams must've been scattered the last few days. I know mine have.
            "Agent Stradford... Jennifer?" she gives me a small sad smile at the use of her given name. It had to come this far for me to call her Jennifer, though I knew she preferred it. Scully, she preferred me calling her Scully, just me. Another stab.
            "Can you help me?"
            "With what?" she seems surprised. So nave, she probably thought I listened to Colton. She must have never really believed the rumors then. 
            "Could you check out some names for me later today."
            "Sure, I guess. But why don't you come in yourself?" Then I see it dawning on her face. "Oh...it's about the case still, isn't it?"
            "Yeah, and I appreciate if you didn't tell anyone, especially not Colton." 
            Like she has anyone else to tell. Fitzgerald, Scully and me, we're all not there anymore.
            "I don't know. I...Colton pulled you of the case, justified or not. I would directly be defying his orders if I would give you that kind of information."
            "I know, Jennifer. It's just. Agent Colton is..." I hesitate. "Agent Colton is as you can see really affected by Scully's, Dana's disappearance. I just don't know if he's capable of doing good solid research now. He pulled me of the case, but I have an idea and I just need some information to confirm it so I can take it to Colton and he can find Scully."
            She thinks for a bit and then looks up to me. 
            "That's a load of crap."
            I'm taken aback. I didn't expect her to immediately buy it, but I didn't expect her to see through it so easily. I underestimated her. I guess I'm the nave one here. 
            "I might be new at this, but I'm not stupid agent Mulder, otherwise I wouldn't have made it through the academy." 
            Colton did, I think.
            I sit down next to her, suddenly feeling the need to talk to someone who might understand a bit. After all, Fitzgerald is dead. 
            "Scully and me. We've been partners for so long. We need each other. Colton doesn't like me, because of something that happened between him, Scully and me a long time ago. He's just trying his hardest to thwart me. And he's stupid. He doesn't see the connection."
            "And you do?"
            "I've got a pretty good idea. He wants Scully back, sure. It wouldn't be good for his career if she would..." I drift off. I can't say it.
            "...if she wouldn't come back," she softly finishes for me.
            "I don't care what the consequences are, I'll take full responsibility, I'll never tell anyone who got me the information, but I need it. I need it to solve the case. I need it to get Scully back." I need Scully, I add in my mind.
            She stares ahead sadly. It's too late for her. Fitzgerald isn't coming back. They didn't know each other very long. I catch myself thinking it's not as bad for her as it is for me, but then I think back to the first year we worked together and how I would have felt if I'd lost Scully then. I hope she doesn't feel the way about Fitzgerald as I felt about Scully then. 
            "What do you need?" she finally says.
            "Can I give you some names later. I need to know about their family, especially the professions, or something else to link them to the person described in my profile. Can you do that?"
            She nods. 
            "Just call me."
            She waits in the door opening. 
    

"Agent Mulder?"  
"What is it?"  
"Remember what you told me about guilt?" I nod.  
"Maybe you should try to follow your own advice." I want to say it's not that easy, that this is different, but she's right. A bit embarrassed she leaves. The silence hits me, almost slaps me to the floor. God, I miss her. 

~ 

Three hours later I give Stradford the first couple of names to check out. I've sent a list over to the Lone Gunmen as well, there are so many. I'm just sitting in my hotel room reading files I've read many times before waiting. I feel so powerless, helpless. I can't do anything for her other then just sit and wait and it's a dreadful feeling. Also, waiting means I don't have much else to do and all these feelings I've been trying hard to suppress are forcing their way into the front of my mind. 
    
    
            Why wasn't I with her?
            I could've prevented this from happening. I knew someone was going to be taken, I knew Colton was an asshole that couldn't be trusted. Why didn't I stay with her? Why didn't I go to her? How is she ever going to forgive me for not being there, when I should have? If she ever gets the chance to not forgive me. Oh, I hope she will get that chance. To yell at me, to be angry with me, I don't care. Anything is better than this awful silence that surrounds me now.
            I turn the TV on, but the voices don't penetrate the silence, which surrounds me like a fog. It blinds me, it deafens me, it isolates me. But it doesn't temper my emotions, which is what I need most. If I hadn't been waiting, I'd been drinking, because feeling is too much to ask of me right now.
            I lost her once, early in our relationship and I barely survived. I know I won't now, if she doesn't come back. I can't let myself. Don't go there, but I see myself sitting with my gun in my hand. This time I will do it, I'll stick it in my mouth and shoot my brains out. I'm weak, I'm selfish and I know it, but there's no one there for me anymore. They all left me, one by one. Samantha, dad, mum and now she. One by one they took hope and love away from me. Faith too, faith that everything could ever be fine again. Only the thought that there is still a chance, still a possibility that I might get Scully back, keeps me from grabbing my gun right now. I'm too weak to deal with this. Scully could, I know it, but I can't. 
            I hold my gun, feel the cold metal pressed against my head. It would be so easy. The TV projects fake moans and sighs of pleasure into my room. It's only background music to my death wish. I stare at the gun in my hand. 
    

I want to die. 

~ 

A name.   
A voice over the phone, giving me a name. 

I never thought life belts came it that form. Richard Capwell. 
    
    
            That's who we've been looking for.
            Richard Capwell, 53, senior researcher at AGIF electronics and IT solutions in biomedical science. His wife Maggie, 49, has been in a coma for nearly 10 years because of unknown causes. One day Richard found her in the bathroom, past out. She was brought to the hospital, where doctors suspected a brain hemorrhage, but no prove could be found. After 10 months, Richard got permission to take her home.
            He spent all his money and spare time on looking for computerized ways of communicating with her, believing computers can mimic a human brain and visualize thoughts. He had company resources to help him with that research.
            I hear what Stradford tells me on the phone. She sounds excited and with reason, because we both know this is the guy. He fits my profile perfectly. This must be him. And I suddenly can breath again.
            I scribble down the address while Stradford insists on telling Colton, so I lie and say I'll head over to the station immediately to inform Colton and get a team ready for a raid. I've no intention whatsoever of doing that though. This Richard Capwell needed these women for something, some research and I doubt he's just holding them captive. He is doing research, maybe testing of some sort, so it could be we need Capwell's help to get them back safely. With a team, that won't work.
            I hear myself, referring to Scully and the others as them, the women, because I can't bear the thought of someone performing tests on Scully. I need to save her, and now I can.
    

~ 

Barely twenty minutes later my car comes to a halt before the address, written down on the piece of paper I've kept clenched in my fist the entire time. My heart in pumping in my chest at the thought I could have Scully back in a matter of minutes. There are no lights on and there's no car in the driveway. I walk to the front door and ring the doorbell. If I'm right about the guy, he's not very font of using violence and I will probably surprise him. I ring it again, but no one is answering. I feel a sting of disappointed and dread rising up my chest. I decide to walk around the house. It's a very regular suburban house. Small garden in the back, nothing special. I look through the kitchen window, no cellar door. I can't see it from any other window either. There are no windows near the ground either, so it's probably safe to say, he hasn't got one. I don't see any sign of habitation. It all looks really clean. If he had his comatose wife here, you'd say, you'd see some sign. I walk back to the front and look in the mailbox. It's full. I kick the post. He's not here, that much is clear. I want to scream out of disappointment. 
    
    
            As I make my way back to the car, the door of the neighbor's house opens. A forty-something lady pokes her head out of the door. 
            "Excuse me Sir, are you looking for Mr. Capwell?"
            I nod. 
            "I think he's on vacation or something. I haven't seen him in quite a while. Or he might be at the hospital with Mrs. Capwell. He took her with him."
            I give her a quick thank-you-smile and get in my car. Where did he take Scully? I'm so angry. Why her? Why did he have to take her? He could've taken anyone else, but he chose her, the bastard. I ram the steering wheel and accidentally hit the tooter. The neighbor's nosy head pokes through her frilly curtains. I start the car and my cell phone rings. My phone indicates no number is being sent.
            "Frohike? You have something?"
            "Mulder, where are you?"
            "Almost at the police station," I reply flatly.
            "We found something. We think that Capwell didn't take them to his house. It's too obvious, he couldn't have done that without someone seeing him."
            Damn right, I think. With a neighbor like that.
            "And for the last 10 months, he has rented a warehouse on the industrial area. I think that's where he took them."
            I sit up straight, suddenly excited.
            "What's the address?"
            "212 Celsius street"
            "Thanks guys, that's great"
            "Can't you tell us what's the emergency?"
            "No, sorry, FBI business. I do need one more thing. Could you send me a blueprint of the building?"     
    
    

~ 

The closer I get to the warehouse, the closer I feel to Scully. I can't wait to get there. I need to get there. My longing seems to let the car fly over the road. Once every while I glance at my PDA to see which turn I need. I feel like I've been traveling back and forth for the last couple of days, hardly stopping to catch my breath. I'm starting to get out of it. Behind every stop there lies an obstacle, a disappointment. My travels throw me from one emotion into the other and it's tiring. I used to like the journey, but then I wasn't alone. I had someone to take turns driving with. 
    
    
            My PDA bleeps and it's the blueprint I asked for. The warehouse has two floors. The ground level is made up out of one big space, probably used for storage. Capwell only rents part of it, and my guess is he rents the basement as well. It's a lot smaller and consists of one large room and 3 smaller ones. The stairs leading to it are in the back of the large storage room  and it seems the entrance is a trap-door in the floor. I'm hoping to get in unseen. I don't know what the security is, but the attached mail from Frohike says he couldn't find much on that, so hopefully there isn't any. I check my gun, so I have it ready, as I turn into the Celsius street. Number 212 is at the end and I drive on. I'm almost there. I could be as little as 300 feet away from Scully. I'm nervous.
            I park my car, three lots from number 212. I get out and look around, but there's no evidence Stradford and the rest have arrived already and I can't wait for them. Every second might count and I can't risk losing Scully. I look at the blueprint again. If I get in through the front door, chances are he'll spot me, way before I spot him so I decide to check out the back. It should be a lot closer to the entrance door of the basement as well. The problem is that there's a lot of empty parking space, which will make it a lot harder to even approach a door. But he works alone. Maybe he has security, but still, he would have to get me by himself. And I have the advantage of surprise. I decide to assume the presence of an alarm or something telling him if someone's entering the building. A plan forms in my mind.
            My heart is beating so loud and fast now, it's interfering with my breath. Even my eyes pound in its rapid rhythm, making the world blur and sharpen periodically. I run to the back and try to force my lock pick in the lock. At the front door I could still do that reasonably well, but I'm so close now, I can almost hear her breathing and the thought is making my hands shake uncontrollably. I feel the clock ticking as fast as my heart, while I'm thinking about how I'm failing her. Always failing her. I'm so close now and I can't open the fucking door. 
            Then finally...finally it's in, and I feel the lock clicking and the door giving way. I'm in the main storage area and it's very dark, but I can feel its emptiness. I silently close the door behind me, hoping he hasn't seen the light across the room. Thirty seconds, a minute I feel around the room. I need to find the door, and it should be somewhere at the back, but I can't find it. I can't fucking find it. I feel myself starting to panic and I force my breath and heart to slow down so I can search the back wall systematically. But my stomach fills with dread, knowing that he is probably at the other side of the room looking for me. Where is the fucking trap-door?
            The suddenly I hear a noise, not far away from me and my heart skips several beats. I back away and my hand reaches for my gun, when I suddenly feel a different texture under my feet. It's the trapdoor. I kneel down and feel for a handle of some kind. I pull it open and step down on what I hope is a flight of stairs. It's starch dark. I try to close it as quickly and quietly as I can and I walk down. My heart is beating so loud now, I'm sure he can hear me. My eyes begin to get used to the dark and I see a strip of light about a foot in front of me. I tighten my hold on my gun and pull of the safety clip. I steady myself in front of the door. It's now. I feel Scully behind it and I pray to God she's still alive. 
            One...
            Two...
            Three.
            I pull down the handle and I push myself in. For a second I can't see anything, because the room is flooded with light. Then I see a shadow approaching me. My finger tightens around the trigger, but I hesitate for a second. Who is it? My heart is beating so loud it's nearly drowning the feeling of love and need.
    

Then everything turns black. 

Chapter 11 

I wake up, but I don't know why. I'm so tired. My eyes feel like they've done a couple of marathons. What has happened? I don't remember, but strangely the feeling of not remembering does sound familiar. 
    
    
            Mulder?
            My eyes flutter open but shut again when they're assaulted by sharp light. Where is he? Someone squeezes my hand. I've got to reach out to him, I've got to talk to him.
            "Mulder?"
            "Hey Dana honey."
            Mom. A feeling of disappointment flushes over me, even though my mother's presence is comforting. Why is he not here?
            "Hi Mom." I try to smile, but it comes out very forced. "Where's Mulder?"
            I now look at her intensely, trying to will her to answer, but I'm so tired.
            "It's okay Dana." And she smiles.
            "Okay..." I sigh and I drift off again.
            When I wake up again I'm less tired and I can keep my eyes over the first time I try. Mom is still sitting there but I still don't see Mulder. Worry grabs me again. Why wouldn't he be here? This time I look around, trying to figure out where I am. The sharp light harassing my eyes is coming from TL-lamps and I'm wearing a blue gown. I'm in the hospital. 
            "Mom, where's Mulder? How did I get here?"
            She chooses to answer neither one.
            "You're in the hospital honey."
            I nod.
            "But how did I get here? Where's Mulder?"
            I look at her impatiently, but she seems determined not to rush her statement of the situation. 
            "You remember the case you were working on?"
            Again I nod my affirmation.
            "You remember being taken by that guy?"
            Some vague visions come to my mind. Fitzgerald's death. Our subsequent race against the clock. Then, waking up in that dark room. I nod again, but with more hesitation this time.
            "Well honey, Fox came after you and he...uhm..."
            She stuttered and her voice fills with regret and concern. Oh my God. The only time I hear my mother stutter is when things are really bad. The last time was when she told me Ahab had died. Nonetheless I urge her to continue. I need to know. The uncertainty is unbearable. 
            "Mom? What is it?"
            "I'm sorry," I see her eyes getting moist and I feel the tears stinging behind my own eyes too. "They came too late. The man who took you had shot him."
            "Mom?" my voice is cracking up while I try to fight my tears, "Mom, what are you saying?"
            "Oh honey..." She starts to cry and begins to rock me like I am still a little girl.
            "No," I say, tears now actually rolling down my cheeks. "No, it's not true. Mom it's not true. They're lying."
            I can't breath anymore as my sobs get louder. Mulder is dead? That can't be. He's all I have. Oh my God. I can't live without him. Mulder. He's everything, he has always been everything. We were just beginning our lives together. I still wanted to do so many things with him. I wanted to make love to him, wake up in the morning to take showers together, spend lazy Sundays in bed reading each other the newspaper, go on wild goose chases because of some ridiculous theory of him which would probably end up to be true.... The vastness of it is dawning on me. God, it's all been taking away. Never, never again. Never see his gorgeous face smiling at me again. Never discuss cases again. Never feel his hand on my back, guiding me through everything with amazing respect. Never again. I can't take it, I scream inside.
            Noooooooooooooooooooooo.
            I start lashing out trying to hit whatever I can to get out this anger, this pain, this irrevocable feeling of being all alone in the world, of having lost the one person I can't stand losing.
            Noooooooooooooooooooooo.
            I vaguely feel someone restricting me, pulling me down on the bed again, while something stings my arm. And all I can think about when I drift off is how I hope I'll never wake up again.
    
    

~ 
    
    
            But I do. I feel awake, but my head is still heavy and I can't muster the energy to look at mom who's holding my hand. And then I realize it can't be my mom because she is sitting on the other side of the room talking to some doctor. Mulder. Now I turn my head and I look into the most gorgeous face I've ever seen. It was all a dream. He looks at me with a strange stare in his eyes. I give him a smile that shows him how glad I am to see him. How amazing he is, and how relieved I am to still have him, but he just stares. I blink and call for him.
            "Mulder." It comes out as a groan. My voice is still not trustworthy, it breaks when I try to form words.
            When the word is out of my mouth I blink again. That's not Mulder there. It's my father.
            "Ahab?" I ask, now with a little more steady voice. He nods, but then his face disappears too, for Melissa's to appear.
            "Let go," she says and then the entire body is gone, not just the face, leaving me alone and puzzled. It isn't like Melissa to let go, or give up. I'm afraid, confused.
            "Mom? Mom, I need you."
            She is at my bedside right away, but vanishes too when she reaches out to touch me and with her the whole room fades, leaving only darkness. I am abandoned. And I scream.
    

~ 

I wake up and I want to open my eyes, but then I remember. What if I open them, and I'm still in the hospital, and Mulder, Mulder is still...dead. I can't face that, I can't, so I just keep them closed. If I open them, then I can't avoid what's there, if I keep them closed... Every reality that I want to be true can be true, if I keep them closed. 
    
    
            I lie there, eyes closed, for what feels like hours. I have heard my mum enter, quite a while ago, but she's just in my dream, I'm dreaming now, because this can't be real, Mulder can't be gone. She touched me, and I know I flinched. Can you feel in dreams? But I just reckon that I'm sleeping and someone else, in the waking world touched me. Mulder maybe. I translated that into my mother touching me, but it isn't real, it can't be. Now, she's just sitting there, though I'm dreaming that, waiting for me to wake up. But I am awake, already, even though I'm not, even though everything now is a dream, because Mulder isn't gone. It can't be.
            I hear someone else enter, and it startles me. I suppose I must have drifted off, if that's possible when you're already asleep. He, it's a man, starts whispering with my mother, but I can hear them, still. He is explaining something to my mother, but I don't want to hear. He sounds too real, to real to be made up, to be a dream. So I squint my eyes shut and try not to listen, try to think about other things.
            "...the shock of hearing it, might have..."
            Don't want to hear it, don't want to hear it.
            "...think she is actually awake..."
            Don't want to hear it, don't want to hear it. Just keep repeating it, and I might not hear it.
            "...she's fine, we're worried about her emotional..."
            Stop talking, stop talking.
            "...invited Dr Howe, to see if she can..."
            I said, stop talking, don't talk, don't talk... 
            "...be here in about an hour, to..."
            I said, "DON"T TALK"
            Immediately I'm aware of the doctor and my mother turning towards me, rushing to my bedside.
            "Dana, what is it? What's wrong?" I hear my mother asking, but I don't want to hear. She's too real, too real, this can't be true. But now the doctor starts to talk. 
            "Ms Scully, Dana? It's all right. I'm Dr Allburn, and I'm treating you. Dana, everything is all right, you'll be fine"
            Too real, way too real. I put my fingers in my ears to block the sound out, curl up into the fetus position and start rocking myself. I can't hear them now, they are a dream once again, and I feel a lot better. 
            I stay this way, until the doctor and finally my mum have left the room. Then I relax my muscles, I ache all over, and start crying. This can't be happening. This is not happening. Why? Why? is all I can think. It can't be, it's not fair. These thoughts keep going through my head: why him, why me. Why? They are the same thoughts as went through my head when I was diagnosed with cancer, when my sister died, when my father died, and on so many occasions with Mulder. Though they were never this confronting, this real. Not even when I was on my deathbed, because then I still had faith. It maybe because of my catholic imprint, but somewhere I still felt I deserved it, dying, if God thought it was to be. But not with Mulder, not him. How can my God judge him, if he didn't even believe in Him? How can Mulder be punished? Mulder doesn't deserve it, and neither do I. So it can't be true then. It just can't be. A bit more relaxed I fall asleep again.
    

~ 

"Honey? Dana? Wake up, Dana. Dana, _wake up_." 
    
    
            "Mom?" She is there holding me, comforting me like when I was young. A little of the safety I felt before is coming back. 
            "I'm here, I'm here, sweetheart."
            "Mom. It was a dream, right? Just a dream." I sob, unable to hold my feelings inside any longer.
            "Yes, Dana, you were just having a nightmare."
            Relief floods over me and I relish in the safety of my mother's arms a bit longer, but I need to see him, I need to make sure it was just a bad dream.
            "Where is he, mom?"
            "Who do you mean, honey?"
            "Mulder."
            "I thought we've been over this." Her voice sounds a little wore down. What conversation about Mulder with my mother have I forgotten? Has he done something? Have they prohibited him from seeing me?
            "Why can't I see him?" I need to know.
            "Fox isn't here anymore. You know that, we've been over that. Now get dressed, we need to go so we won't get stuck in traffic."
            What? It was true after all. He's dead? But she said it was a nightmare.
            "You said it was a nightmare," I say with panic starting to rise in my voice. 
            "Yes, you were having a nightmare about something and were screaming my name when I woke you up. It's all right, honey. Come on, I'll help you get dressed."
            I don't understand. What nightmare? Images of Mulder, Ahab and Melissa come flooding my mind. Feelings of abandonment. I remember.
            "Dana, I know you're hurting, but we need to go."
            Something is wrong. Mulder is dead. Everything is wrong now. I look at my mother's stern face and I feel tears well up in my eyes again and I let them fall, reaching out for my mother's comfort. Quietly I cry, though inside I'm screaming. She holds me for a minute but then steps away and starts gathering my clothes. 
            "Dana, you have to stop crying now. We need to go, otherwise we'll be stuck in traffic. We can talk on the way home. Maybe we can visit his grave tomorrow."
            It takes a moment for her last words to register in my brain. His grave? Mulder has already been buried? I didn't even get to go to his funeral. Images of an abandoned graveyard make the pain even worse. He doesn't deserve that. I sob again at the pain that thought causes me. I didn't even get to say goodbye. A hand, my mother's, holds me by the arm.
            "Listen to me. I know it must be really hard for you that Fox is gone, but that's how it is. The mourning will come now. But I think you should be really lucky it wasn't you."
            She doesn't understand. It must have been really different for her when Ahab died.
    "Let's go home, Dana, you'll feel a lot better there."
            I look at her in disbelief. How can I ever feel better when he's gone? How can I feel lucky that is was him and not me? I curse my God for that. She doesn't understand.
            "Let go of me," I say as I try to pull my arm away from her. My voice is hoarse with the pain I'm feeling now.
            "Dana! Listen to me. I know you don't want to believe it and you're thinking of ways to make it not true. But Fox is dead. He isn't with us anymore. He's in God's hands now."
            I close my eyes to put a wall between me and those words, but I still hear them. Finally I open them again and look at her familiar face. 
            I quietly cry in the back of her car all the way to her place.
    
    

~ 

Please forgive me, for everything. You will deny my hurting you, but I know I did, held you back, held myself back. Especially that. Please forgive me for not opening up, for not letting go. It would have made everything so much easier if we would just be honest to ourselves. But I couldn't. I have lost that childlike ability to go for something and lose myself in it, the fist time it broke my heart. I admire that ability in you, I envy it. Daniel was the one that did that, you know, and it still hurt when we met again. 
    
    
            Our relationship taught me that love does not conquer all and does not outweigh everything else. Also it taught me that admiration, rebellion and security don't add up to love and that they certainly do not conquer all. Our reunion was like coming full circle in every way. At least mentally. In practice it still needs some work. The circle started with Daniel and gave me the fear of losing control and in the process myself, the fear of letting go. Meeting him again made me realize that circle and the truth behind the clich. It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. 
            And I have loved. I dare admit it now. I loved you so much. You were all I was missing. I admire and cherish your beautiful mind and I know I wouldn't put myself on the line for anyone but you. But I held back, and I regret it. No regrets was never our mantra. I wish I had told you more, not just the few vague references. But it's easier now, not as scary. I held back and I wish I could change that. I wish I could meet you and tell you what you mean to me, tell you how beautiful you are, how much your late calls meant to me. But we both didn't let it show. 
    At night, on stakeouts or in our respective homes and apartments we talked, but it was superficial, neither one wanted to acknowledge the loneliness that drove us together, the feelings that kept us there. All the acts of caring, loving, were always done behind the disguise of friendship, partnership, again neither one acknowledging it's true nature, both scared. But if asked I could never really describe my feeling for I had no frame of reference. Never have I felt such a commitment, a connection with anyone and I know of none that have. Maybe they too feel unable to express the deepness of their bond. I know you have not experienced it. We don't talk about, our pasts. They reveal too much and yet tell nothing about us now. 
            Earlier relationships, romantic or platonic, they are nothing to my heart as this one is. The importance of them lies in their effect on me and my attitude towards life. It's the same for you, I know. The ones I know about, Phoebe, Diana, when they came back you were vulnerable because of what they once might have meant. To them. Can I say with certainty that that vulnerability came from the knowledge that what you had with them is nothing compared to us? I dare not be that presumptuous, but deep down I feel that is a part of it. 
    Why didn't we talk, why didn't I tell you that after I met you my previous life paled, faded? It died at the comparisons I made. It faded into oblivion because the superficial nature it had. Now I know that if you are not here, life will be like my paled and faded past, because everything I compare to you and my life with you. And though I have so many regrets about our life together, choosing that life is not one of them, not ever. It was the most amazing thing that happened. It caused me so much pain, but I feel now that I've lived.
            Had I continued on the path I was on, I probably wouldn't have suffered the kind of pain I have now. I might have had a life without the hurt, but I would have lived a life without really living and really feeling. It's a paradox, I know. I couldn't let go, couldn't give up control, but everything was so intense with you. I lost that ability to lose control before I chose my life with you and I know that in some other life I would have stayed afraid without knowing why, without trying to regain that ability again. I might have had more happy times, but I could have never become happy. The superficial nature of the life I could have had is too much, in living my life for others, my father, Daniel, I could never find true happiness. With you I feel I can. 
    

You taught me to experience feelings as intense as happiness, you helped me regain my ability to be a child, to be like you, not Daniel, not anyone else. But most of all you taught me to be me, not to try and live up to other people's expectations, to exist in a world made up by their rules. You were the first man I met that just let me be. You challenged me sure, but always with respect as soon as I proved my worth to you and that was within a day I think. I wish I could tell you this in no uncertain terms, tell you of the love I feel for you and how you changed my life. I don't want you to be proud of me, I want you to be proud of yourself. And love yourself and me, like I love you. I want to tell you that I want to live and love with you, that I want to give up control with you, lose myself in you, because I trust you and I know you will rescue if I go too far and you will lose yourself in me too. 

Mulder, I love you. 

~ 

I'm lying on my back, eyes closed, breath shallow and fast. If I open my eyes I'll see the world as it is and I don't want to, won't, can't. I had hope. Just for a few seconds. I saw you. But again my eyes were not to be trusted, they deceive me like everything else deceived me, betrayed me. I'm becoming you. It makes me smile, that thought, but it's a sour smile for you can't be something that doesn't exist and you don't, not anymore. It has been like this for ages. This sad heavy feeling, like a threatening sleep, a coma that tries to take over. My eyes frown continuously now and I feel like I should cry. I can't though. I'm too tired and it requires acceptance. I prefer the denial I'm living in now. But daytime is cruelly intruding my bedroom, waking me, shaking me, forcing me to deal with another day without you. 
    
    
            I get up. I remember you here in my bedroom. Sick, battered, but still not broken. I make coffee. I used to make coffee for you. Tried to show you the advantages of decaf, but you were never convinced. Now I too drink it with caffeine, only because you did it, though I know it's not healthy. Or maybe because of that. I gather some files that were in the table. They look like you and I were working late last night, like so many nights before. Struggling through the paperwork we had togetherness, though the boredom often outweighed the joy of us together. I get breakfast and sit on my couch. I remember us on another couch, your couch, when I told you about Daniel and you listened, really listened. When we watched Caddy shack together. I remember all those other movies on nights we both felt lonely, but not when we were together, never then. 
            When your things were sold, the owner of your building asked me what I wanted to have. I took your fish, but not your couch. I thought it would remind me too much of you. I didn't realize I wouldn't need the couch to remember. Now I wish I had taken it, maybe it still would have had some of your warmth and comfort in it. Maybe I could have lain down on it and sleep and dream of your arms around me. When I'm asleep I can be happy. In my dreams you're there and we can share life again. Then I'm happy. So I sleep. More and more each night. One day I'll sleep so long that I won't wake up and I long for that day, because then I can dream of you eternally. 
            Until then I need to go on and it's a struggle. I've still continued working. I owe that to you, to myself and to the X-files, but it's hard. Everything pains me. I try to look at the cases like you did, but I can't and it makes me feel like I'm failing you. All I want to do is live up to your expectations, because that's what would make you happy. But it's so hard. I don't want to anymore. I don't want to live. Everything is so much harder than before. Breathing is no longer self-evident. It costs me a lot of energy only to do that nowadays. Work is something I can hardly bear. I have a new partner, and I fail him too. I can't concentrate on cases anymore. I've decided to quit. It's for the best; I hurt the X-files more by staying. My incredibly low solve rate is bound to be the excuse to close them down and my new partner will be great. But I'm failing you. Leaving your life work behind.
            I miss you. I never understood the meaning of that word when I was younger, but since my father's and my sister's death, I know it. I know what it's like to feel deprived of something. To want to talk to a person and take comfort in him or her and then find that person isn't there, that you can't express and share your feelings anymore with him or her. Never again. It was then I learned the meaning of missing. Or at least I thought I did. But now I'm without you and it's worse than I could ever imagine. It might sound harsh, but the pain of missing I felt with Ahab and Missy is nothing compared to this. I was never convinced a person could actually feel pain in his heart. But I do. It is a continuous feeling of being smothered starting in your heart going up through your throat so that you can hardly breath and then finally making it up to your head, filling it with hurt and missing and pain until you know you're just going to explode. And it works down to your stomach feeling like butterflies turned evil. Black butterflies fluttering in your stomach giving you the feeling that something irrevocable has happened. I'm not even angry anymore. I was for a while. At you, at my mother and most of all at God. And at you for not believing in him, for not believing in life after death. I can't live like this, but not even dying can get you back.
            I lost you.
    
    

~ 

It's been three whole months. I can't believe how time flies. Everyday is the same now. I get up when there's no chance at all of sleeping again. I force three bites of breakfast down my throat and put myself to chores. My house has never been cleaner, my fridge has never been fuller, but there's no one there to see it. 
    
    
            My mother visits me once a week, sometimes twice, but she knows I don't like her being there. She fusses, tells me I look too thin, tells me I need to get out, tells me all sorts of thing I need to do, not understanding I can't and I don't want to. I've tried banning you from my thoughts, but it's impossible. The more I try not to think about you, the more memories harshly occupy my brain. Always the happy ones too, never the bad ones. 
            Maybe I shouldn't push my mother away, she's all I have left now. Friends became scarce during the years you were all I needed, so I'm all alone. Always alone. 
            It isn't getting better. A cup of coffee makes my heart feel like it is being ripped out, remembering how you joked at my decaf. A song on the radio makes we ponder how you sang along to it on the way to who-knows-where. Everything, every single thing I see or hear or do, makes me long for you so much, makes me ache for you and the knowledge that I can never have you again, smell you again, talk to you again...it hurts, it just hurts.
            Lately my mother had been suggesting a psychiatrist. I went, just to please her. She told me about letting go. How it wouldn't be betraying you if I were to move on. She doesn't understand I don't want to. I know there is no other life for me; I let myself be dragged in too deep for that. But no regrets, no regrets at all. Just that day, that day we went on the case. I regret that so much.
            This one sentence keeps going through my mind. Something you once said to me. `You believe in God, so you will go to heaven, I don't believe in Him, so after we die we will never meet again.' Not even death can fulfill my deepest longing now.
            I contemplated suicide a while back. Death, endless sleep seemed like the best way to deal with this pain, but I couldn't, because of that sentence. Death would mean never meeting you again in  a way so final I can't deal with.
            The psychiatrist also suggested, to deal with my loss, I would go back to where you left me. Or where you were taken. Either way. 
            The warehouse. I've been thinking about it and more and more I want to go there. To be close to you, I guess, in the vain hope some of your spirit stayed there, unable to leave me behind like I'm not capable of doing with you. But I'm afraid. Afraid nothing will be there and afraid I can't ever leave if there is something. Or maybe that's what I want. 
            I turn in bed again and shake my head, trying to ban these thoughts that haunt me day after day from my head. It doesn't work of course. I look at the alarm clock 9:42 am. Too early, it makes the day so long. I sit up, the sun is shining through a crack in my drapes. I'm so tired.
            I need to go there. I pick up my phone and dial the number of the airport.
    

Chapter 12 

My head is pounding so hard, I think my brain is trying to push out my eyeballs. I think about opening my eyes, but that thought alone is enough to increase the pounding tenfold, so I don't. My hands are tied I think. I can't move them and something is cutting into my skin, so that's probably a safe bet. I try to concentrate. Where am I? What am I doing here? I know it's something important, but I've forgotten what it is. Or maybe my headache prevents me from knowing it. But it's important, so it's important I remember. 
    
    
            My head hurts so much. Why?
            I open my eyes as I suddenly remember where I must be and what I'm doing here. The light hurts like hell and I don't care anymore.
            Scully!
            My eyes close again in a reflex and I force them open.
            I need to see where exactly I am. I need to see where she is. 
            "I see you're finally awake," I hear a voice behind me. I turn my head around, but I can't see the owner of the voice. 
            "Where's Scully?"
            "She's right here, in the room next door."
            Someone is walking up beside me, pulling a chair and sitting down next to me. I still can't see properly.
            "I'm sorry I had to hit you over the head, agent Mulder. But you would've probably shot me if I hadn't and I couldn't risk that."
            "You're Capwell, aren't you?" I ask, starting to remember the situation.
            "Yes I am, I'm Richard Capwell, but you know exactly who I am, don't you?"
            "Mr. Capwell, you need to let me go. You need to untie me and let me go. In a few minutes a lot of police and FBI will surround this building. If you let me and agent Scully go now, they might not be as hard on you."
            While I'm saying this I realize how hopelessly untrue that is. No one knows I'm here. No one knows this address and no one is going to surround this building and rescue us.
            "Unfortunately for you, I know that no one knows you're here, agent Mulder. And I can't untie you, not until you listen to me. I need your help."
    

~ 

My head is spinning with everything Richard Capwell's told me. After his wife got into a coma nearly ten years ago and the doctors told him there was no hope she was ever going to wake up again, he had been looking for a way to help her. He had read everything he could about comatose people and how their consciousness and state of mind supposedly worked. And he had developed his own theory about how people can wake up from comas. According to Capwell, the moment these people realize they're in some kind of dream world, they can make themselves wake up. Somewhat like when you're having a bad dream and you can chance the course of the dream or choose to wake up as soon as you realize you're only dreaming. So his dilemma was how people do that, realize they're dreaming. The first thing he did was develop a way of transferring electrical signals in the brain to images comprehendible for us. This had been surprisingly easy. His company, which luckily for him was in the same field as his own research, had recently developed a very sophisticated manner of measuring brain activity, primarily meant for research to link anatomical areas of the brain to different activities and emotions. With only a few adaptations he was able to use this equipment on his wife. All he needed was a computer program that could translate these electrical signals into images. 
    
    
            Then he ran into just the person for that. The friend had worked at an IT-company who was researching just the opposite, namely how to translate complex imagery and information into electrical currents, suitable for artificial intelligence. He had asked for his help and together they converted the program into something more suitable for him. Coupled to the equipment he had already had, he could now `see' what his wife was thinking or dreaming of, at least to a certain extent. What he had discovered was amazing. Next to seemingly nonsense dreams she had been dreaming alternate versions of the current reality. And one of these alternate futures had been particularly interesting. It had appeared as though she was `plugged in' to some kind of collective subconscious. The same women had been revisiting her dreams and she saw the mostly mundane things they were doing. Why these women, he didn't know.
            Then, one day, he had run into one of them. He had had to look a couple of times, for he couldn't believe his eyes. It was one of them, one of the women from his wife's dreams. He had automatically followed her home when a second strange event occurred. He had a dja vu of some sort, knowing he had seen or lived that moment before. And then it hit him. His wife had dreamt this, a day before, exactly one day. 
            He has sat in his car for the longest time, trying to realize what this meant. His wife was dreaming the future of a few selected women. Why these women, he still didn't know, but there had to be a reason their minds were linked to one and another. From that moment on, the next step in his quest was clear: why these women? He followed her again, the next day, until he knew for sure that he had seen her doing just that. And until he knew her name and address. Friends again came in very handy. He now knew the why. She had been in a coma. 
            And this was when he formed his plan. 
            With the help of his wife's dreams he had tried to pin down moments at which they were alone, only to find she never dreamt those moments. Always there was someone there. How could he tell her he needed to see them when they were alone? 
            This had set him back another year, which he had used to try and find a way to use his equipment to have an information input instead of just output into her brain, so he could tell her what he needed. It had worked in the end, though not as he wanted it to. He could put information from his brain into hers, but she didn't respond the way he wanted her to. Still these women in her dreams weren't alone, but always with someone. Apparently she could only connect to them when they were in the presence of someone else. She had been dreaming though about situations in which there was only one other person present. At first he had thought he'd failed until, a week later, he saw her dream of a man, alone, he had never seen before. Not until two days later when he appeared as a car-park attendant next to one of the women. Three weeks later, the same thing happened again. 
            It had dawned on him what he was seeing. He now had an opportunity to abduct these women when there was no one there. And to make sure no one was there, he now had the opportunity to get the one person that would be present out of the way, because he knew when they were alone. His wife had given him these opportunities. 
            A year, it had taken him to be sure of it. He had followed the people appearing in her dreams, had made sure they were alone 24 hours after she had dreamt they would be, had made sure they were with the women exactly 48 hours after that. And they had been. 
            He had bought a gun. He had bought more equipment and beds. Then, when he was ready, he waited. A week. Then the first victim had announced himself. 
            It had all gone very smoothly, just like she had dreamt. He had felt guilty though, had left a note. `Sorry', it had said. But finally, his research could begin. 
    

The abductions, the murders, the links. We had found them, but we never really knew why. His wife was in a coma. The women he'd abducted had been as well, but why did he need them? The answer has been given to me now and my head is spinning with the details. Capwell sounds like a desperate man, a man who would do anything in his power to help his wife, even sell his soul. 

~ 
    
    
            We've been silent for 10 minutes. He is sitting opposite me now. Tired, but hopeful, still hopeful and beaten, but not defeated. And more and more, as I look at him, I start to see me, sitting there, having hurt people, ruthlessly ignored their feelings, and killed even for this goal, this quest. I know I'm looking into the obvious now, but the longing for clichs is strong. I've always had that, flirting with a clich life, despite my living the unconventional. If I had been him and Scully was my wife. I'm not sure I would've handled it differently.
            He looks up now, sees me looking at him. 
            "I never wanted to hurt all these people, agent Mulder. But I can't live without her."
            He knows the clichs too.
            He gets up and walks up to me. I look up to him.
            "Where is agent Scully?"
            "I'm sorry, but I need to do this."
            He gets out his gun. For a moment my heart stops.
            "I'll untie you, but I have to use this for safety. I'll show you agent Scully."
            My hands are thankful for the relief from the pull of the robes. I feel the barrel of the gun pushing in the small of my back. We walk towards one of the doors at the back of the room. My head is pounding, but my heart is louder. I didn't realize I was so close to her.
            He tells me to open the door. I feel how sweaty my hands are when they touch the cold medal of the doorknob. The door is heavy and I have to push hard. We walk into a darkened room. Small lights are blinking everywhere. A number of computer screen are turned on and strange images appear on them. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to get used to the darker room, and then I see red hair. 
            I take a sharp breath. She's lying there. Eyes closed and breathing steadily. But asleep. In a coma. I feel so much anger bubbling up inside me. About what he did. To her and to me. He wanted his wife selfishly and he took Scully for it. Like no one else mattered but her. You would have done the same, I think.
            "Why did you do it to her?" I turn violently, forgetting about the gun he holds in his hands and how it has killed too many people already.
            To my surprise he doesn't pull the trigger, but takes a step back and bends his head down. The gun is still pointing at me though.
            "I'm sorry, but I told you, I need her to make Maggie better.""
            "Explain it to me. Why did you have to put her and all those other in a coma? You know what it is like for their loved ones, their friends, why are you doing it?"
            "They...they've woken up before. They've left the dreamland. They know how to do it. So if they do it, while they're here, hooked up to my equipment, I'll know how and I can tell Maggie."
            "How come they haven't woken then? She's still asleep and you did this to here."
            My anger subsides somewhat at his helplessness.
            "I know. They don't. I don't know why, but they won't wake up. That's why I need your help."
            "What do you mean?"
            "Well, as I was studying the imagery gathered from the other women. I found that they were dreaming similar things to Maggie. About the others. But agent Scully is different. She doesn't dream a lot about the others. Instead, she dreams of you.
            "I've found that the imagery I get is only a very small part of what they're presumably thinking. But the other part, it's somehow very hard to visualize on the computer screens. In agent Scully's case, I didn't get much imagery at all, at first. For some reason she wasn't it seemed as connected to the others as they were. Instead I kept getting images of you from her. This let me to believe she might not be less connected to the others but rather that her mind is just too occupied with you to dream about anything else."
            He falls silent for a minute and a wistful look appears on his face. 
            "She must care for you a lot. I have appeared in Maggie's dreams on a few occasions, but not nearly as much as you do in agent Scully's dreams."
            "What do you need my help for?"
            "I need you to go into agent Scully's dreams. Like I influenced Maggie, but farther. I'm going to put you in a coma while you're connected to her brain. I've started to believe outside influence is essential in order for the comatose patient to realize they are in a coma, and that what they are dreaming is not real."
            "Why don't you go in yourself? Who better then to wake Maggie then you?"
            "Don't you see, you two are different. She can't stop thinking about you. Seeing you in her dreams would have a much bigger impact than if Maggie were to see me...and if I know the kind of impact... Besides, I'm the only one that knows how everything works. If something goes wrong..."
            He drifts off and I look at him in disbelieve. He wants me to willingly go into a comatose state and enter Scully's thoughts? My stomach turns at the thought, not because I dread a coma, but more at how Scully would react if she found me in her thoughts. It is invading her privacy and for some reason it is also crossing a boundary we've never crossed. Really knowing what the other thinks of you maybe. 
    I look at her. Sleeping. So quiet, motionless. I need to do this, it's the only way to get Scully back. I believe that. This man here, in front of me, has tried everything, I can see the despair in his eyes and I recognize it. There is no other way. So there is no hesitation.
            We walk towards the machinery.
    

Chapter 13 

I open my eyes and look around unaware of where I am at first. It takes a while before my eyes register a ceiling quite similar to the one of the hotel room we've been living in. I feel my leg, asleep from lying in an awkward position. It takes another few moments to become aware of a feeling of uneasiness and the strangeness of that. I'm at the hotel room, I was sleeping in my bed and I have the strange feeling I don't belong here. 
    
    
            Unable to place it I get up. I walk to the bathroom to take a pee and start to ponder what the day will bring. I'll go to the police station, where are we on the case? Then it hits me. I'm not supposed to be here. Well, I am, but I'm not here. Everything flashes back to me. The case, Colton, Stradford and Fitzgerald, the victims, Fitzgerald's dead body, the search, Scully, oh God, Scully.
            I sit down against the wall, suddenly breathing rapidly. Capwell, Scully, the Dreamland, Scully. I need to find her. Worry is grabbing my heart, squeezing it until it can barely beat anymore.
            Where is she? Where am I? Am I in my own dreams or am I in hers? The last. So if I'm in her dreams, am I real, or is there another dream-Mulder walking around here? And where is she? Where would I be in her dreams?
    The strangeness of it hits me. I'm walking, peeing, feeling the cold of the bathroom tiles like it's all real. But it's not. I now understand why those women, why Scully didn't wake up. How can you discern this from real life, if you don't know you're sleeping. Even I am not entirely sure I'm dreaming. I takes a minute for me to fully grasp the situation and with that my task at hand becomes apparent again. Where would I be in her dreams?
            Her hotel room, the police station? But what if she's not in Chicago. It's her dream, her world. She could be anywhere. Where do I start? I walk towards the door connecting are rooms and knock on it, hard. But no answer.
            Her cell phone. I grab mine and push the speed dial number. A woman's voice tells me this person is unable to answer because he or she is out of reach from the network. The voice conjures up memories and constricts my throat while worry fills my mind again, but I shake it off. I quickly put some clothes on and decide to drive to the police station to see if she's there. I get my car keys and practically run to my car. The tires shriek as I pull away.
            There must be a reason I woke up here, instead of DC. She must still be in Chicago. But where? Something tells me she isn't at the police station. Aimlessly I drive around, the vastness of Chicago hitting me, all the while fearing the vastness of the whole of the United States. If she's not here, not at home in DC, where is she. I try her cell phone again, but of course the woman still tells me the same. Distracted, I don't see the cars putting on the brakes in front of me, and I have to jam mine to come to a halt in time. I look at the crossroad, not really seeing, then suddenly I do. 
            Quarry's industry park. 
            The warehouse. 
            I recklessly change lanes when finally the lights turn green again. It's somehow the best chance I have if she's still in Chicago. For a moment I contemplate the strangeness of having to fly to DC in her dreams. Technically, if they were my dreams, I should be able to force my mind to think I'm in DC. Unfortunately I don't think my rules apply in her dream world. 
    I drive fast. Fast enough  to have my license taken away indefinitely. Then I realize I can't have my license taken away, I'm in Scully's dream. Though she would probably find it just if I was caught speeding, while in her dream. She told me who knows how many times I needed to obey to the laws of traffic. The closer I get to the warehouse the surer I am that she's there. I start to feel it in my gut. She's there. Excitement flushes me.
            I'm there and it looks exactly the same as last time I got here. Though I can't really get here, because I'm still there. Going back to where I am. I feel a sneaking curiosity to see myself lying in a coma, though I know it isn't possible. I slam my car door shut and run to the front door, where I find the door unlocked. As far as I can see the main hall is deserted and I feel a stab of disappointment. Then my eye falls onto the back and I remember the basement. This time I find the trap-door effortlessly and I hesitate only slightly before opening it. So close, finally. My hand pushes down the doorknob, the door opens and I step into an empty room, I recognize from an earlier encounter.
            How can this be? I know she's here, I can feel her everywhere around me, in me. I open every door and look in the empty rooms behind them. I want to scream, cry. Where is she? Where is she? I knew she was here. How could I be so wrong? I slam my hand against the wall in anger. Hard enough to have it really hurt. Which feels good. For a moment it can distract me from a pain much worse. 
            "FUCK!"
            I walk back up the stairs again. The despair is overwhelming. Where can she be then? DC. I curse the time it will cost me to get there. I cross the main room and I'm only halfway when the front door opens. Then my breath, my heart, my feet, everything stops.
    
    

~ 

The trip went by. Not slow, not fast, it just went by. I sat in the airplane, looking out of the window the entire flight. I wasn't even excited, as I had thought I would be. Nor anxious. I just sat there, looking out the window at the clouds. Only once I thought of heaven and where Mulder isn't. 
    
    
            The cab ride is the same. I plainly state my destination and he drives, on and on. I look out the window, occasionally recognizing things from my previous stay, but no feeling. None. I think my heart is bracing itself for impact. An all or nothing response. As soon as I feel something, I will feel everything and I will sit down on the ground and cry like the world has ended. But for me it will have.
            Maybe it is this last goal, this final destination I have to visit that holds me upright on the way over there. To come to terms with it, or maybe to realize I can never come to terms with it. I am drawn there, I need to see it, where he has died, before I...before I would.
            "18,70, lady" 
            I give him twenty and get out. It's the place all right, but no memories of it come to mind. I realize I've never seen the outside. Unconscious when I came her, unconscious when I got out. He was conscious when he got in and dead when he came out. Death surrounded this case from the beginning and it only got worse.
    Slowly I walk up to the front door. I never even wondered how I would get in. I have no key or anything to pick the lock with. Surprisingly the doorknob gives way when I push it down. A sigh of relief escapes me, though it might as well be a sigh of anxiety.
            I push the door open and a strip of sunlight falls on the dusty floor. Apart from that it's pitch-black inside, but that strip is enough. I feel it everywhere around me, in me, that this is where he must have died. His spirit, his smell, they are so strong, they smother me. I can almost touch him, so present is he. I push the door open a bit further and walk in. The strip widens and suddenly I see him. His spirit, left here. To haunt maybe, as he would say. And it's too much. All the pain I feel comes outside. Tears are rolling down my face but I make no sound. I just stand there as the pain floods me, not even consciously crying. My body just is. And I hate it for a moment, I hate it so much, for betraying me, for playing tricks on me, for showing Mulder, when it knows I can't deal with it, I can't take it. 
            I look up through my tears and he's still standing there. I want to walk to him, hold him, touch him, but you can't touch a spirit. The cruelty of it all is overwhelming. Why did he leave me? 
            "Why did you leave me?" I softly say, though my voice is cracking up from the hurt I feel. Then I fall down on my knees, who can't bear my weight, the weight of pain, anymore. I just stare at him and I feel the tears wetting me.
    

~ 

The image I see is the one thing I wanted most in the world. Ten meters in front of me she is standing, light coming from behind her, scattered around by the dust. It takes a moment before her face becomes clear enough for me to see, but the look on it is like a sword piercing through me. Her pain is overwhelming. Seeing her like that, like she never lets me see her, makes me feel vulnerable as well. Suddenly her body slumps and she falls down on her knees. She sits there with silent tears, more out of control than I've ever seen her. Not even when she was fighting cancer. 
    
    
            "Why did you leave me?" she asks and the sword is twisted and turned inside of me. Why did I? How could I ever have left her? Especially after Fitzgerald, who's death made me realize my own vulnerability once more. Why didn't it make me realize hers? 
            I feel so guilty, so incredibly guilty, I can't bear to walk up to her. She despises me for what I did and rightfully. I abandoned her, left her, and that is something that has no excuse. Not when you're colleagues, especially in our line of work, not when you're friends, because friends are there for each other. And not when you're...like us I guess. Especially then. I betrayed her. 
            She's still kneeling there, just staring and silently crying. So beautiful and heartbreaking in the light. I need to walk away, because I now she'll never forgive me for what I did, but I know I'll only want to do that because of me, for I can't bear the guilt I feel when I see her like that, and not for her. So it's to appease my guilt that makes me stand there in front of her, frozen. How selfish. 
            "Mulder?" she asks in her softest voice. It sounds like it can break apart any minute. 
            It takes a while before the lump in my throat has cleared. Shamefully I look up to her.
            "Yes?"
            To my shock her eyes widen and the tears stop. Have I hurt her that bad?
    

~ 

He talked. Thoughts are racing through my brain, because he talked. Can spirits talk? No, the rational part of brain cries. But it is screaming `Mulder is dead' as well. I don't know anymore and I can't think straight. One thought is pushing itself to the front of my head. I need to touch him. My physical longing is taking over. I've been longing for this for the last three months. But how can I touch him when he's not real. I'm so confused. It's too much. I shake my head to shake the thoughts out. I want him, but is he there? 

~ 

She sits there, silent, shaking her head. I feel so helpless. I want to go over to her, but I'm very much doubting if she wants me too. My physical longing is taking over though. I've been longing for it for the last couple of years. I want her, but there was always the doubt. Does she want me? I start to walk over to her, when her fragile voice sounds again. 
    
    
            "Are you really here?"
            I look at her, confused. Why wouldn't I really be here? 
            "What do you mean?"
            She looks at me with the same confused look I have. 
            "You're...you're gone." It is visibly costing her an enormous amount of effort to say that. Suddenly it starts to dawn to me. I'm not really here. I'm in her dream. And in her dream I'm gone. This is the shock on her face, the confusion, and the wonder. She's not sure if she's seeing ghosts or not. So fragile, sitting there. So alone. I step forward, until I'm only one step away. Her eyes widen. I put my hand softly on her cheek and caress her cheek. My heart is racing with doubt of whether I am right and if she won't push me away, but my hand is amazingly steady. 
            "I...I don't understand," she stutters. 
            "I'm here Scully, I'm not dead," I say stupidly. She seems to understand though. 
            Her mouth opens to ask a million questions and then closes again. I take her hand and help her up, pulling her into my arms in the mean while. I'll explain later. 
            And I hold her.
    
    

~ 

His touch feels so good, so warm, so real, but I still can't believe what is happening. How can he be alive? How can my mother have buried some else? Why is he here? I look up to his face and untangle my hand so I can touch it. So many questions are shooting through my mind. "How?" I finally manage to say.  
"What do you remember?" he asks gently, not letting go of me. "I was in the hospital. Mum told me you died." He nods understanding.  
"And before that?"  
"I was here I think. He got me."  
He nods again. "He got you and I followed him to get you back." I see the shame in his eyes when he says that. "You died when you tried that." "No, I found you, but he found me first. He explained it to me and showed me how you were in a coma." My mind is a blur. A coma?  
"You are still comatose. And so am I."  
My mind immediately discards the notion. How can I be in a coma. Everything I feel, I felt, it's all so real. "I can't be in a coma." "You are. I was brought into your dreams to get you back, to awaken you. I saw you lying there, sleeping." He pulls his eyes away from me and I recognize his manner of shame. "But then...how do you know that you're not the one that was dreaming, that this isn't the real world. You said he got you. It could be you that is comatose." He contemplates it for a second. "But if this is real, how can I be here, alive?" I takes a few seconds for this thought to completely enter my mind. I close my eyes for a second. 

Chapter 14 

I'm lying comfortably when my eyes fly open again. Two seconds is what it takes for me to realize I'm still in the warehouse, just not in the same place. Another two seconds before I understand what that means. My dream is still so fresh in my mind that I can remember the smells, the touches, everything. The pain still burns through my body, slowly being extinguished by the relief of Mulder being here, with me, alive. I turn my head to see him, and in a moment of anxiety I think he hasn't woken up, that he's still trapped in my dreams and can never come back. Then he opens his eyes and smiles at me. 
    
    
            My FBI mode is starting to kick in, because I suddenly find myself looking around and my hand feeling for my gun. Which isn't there of course. I feel something jerking at my hand and I see the IV-line that's inserted in my arm. I carefully remove it. I see Mulder remove it as well and get up and try to do the same, but my legs won't do what I tell them and I nearly fall down.
            "Be careful, you haven't moved in a couple of days," he comforts me.
            To hear him talk makes it real somehow.
            Suddenly the door flies open and Capwell comes storming in. His, my, gun still in his hand. 
            "I heard noi..." He stops dead in his tracks. He seems to fail breathing for a couple of seconds and then walks straight to his wife.
            "Maggie. Oh Maggie." He holds her hand so tight when he pulls her into his embrace. Tears are streaming over his face. 
            "We've got it...we've found it. Maggie."
            He looks so happy and my heart goes out to him. But he isn't minding us, and he isn't minding his gun, and one and one makes two, especially in this situation and especially when you're in the FBI. I slowly start to make my way around them, so I'm behind him where he can't see me. Mulder looks at me, his face asking me what I'm doing. I nod to my gun. He seems doubtful for a second, as I'm slowly approaching Mr. Capwell. I am now only a step away. I start to reach out my hand to take it, when all of the sudden a very loud beeping noise occurs. Capwell jerks up, feels my hand that was close to his back, is startled, and takes his gun out to point it at me. Put of track by the alarm, I react too slowly to stop him. 
            "Stop right there, don't move," he shouts at me with a bewildered look in his eyes. "Move over to him." He points the gun at Mulder. I walk over him, keeping my face towards Capwell. Mulder puts his hand at the small of my back when I stand next to him. I feel comforted by it. I lean a bit. My legs are exhausted by the short amount of time they've carried my weight.
            "You warned them, you told them where I was. You betrayed me. I thought you understood, I thought you loved her like I love my Maggie. That you'd do anything to get her back and you would help me do the same. Because you know the hurt of having to live without her." He is screaming at Mulder, losing more of his control every second.
            "I didn't tell anyone where I went," Mulder explains calmly. "It could be anyone here."
            He seems to calm down a bit with that, but he still looks extremely agitated and we both know that he is very well capable of killing someone. Especially out of despair.
            "Who else would be here, who else would enter a warehouse?"
            Mulder is quiet after this and Capwell continues.
            "Exactly. They're here. Because of you," he angrily shouts at Mulder.
            Suddenly his face changes into one of incredible sadness. "Now I can never get Maggie back. They'll throw me into jail and put her into a nursing home. I know how to waken her, and now I can't," he says with tears moistening his voice. "I thought you understood."
            I send Mulder a look that means he has to be careful. This man is very unstable. The wrong move could make him shoot us, not to forget could make him be shot, as apparently some of us are entering the building. He appreciates my look, but of course doesn't listen.
            "Richard," he says softly. "I do know what you feel like, I know how much you miss her, you need her." He sounds so sincere that it breaks my heart. 
            They both jump when they hear the trap door opening upstairs. In a split second I see Mulder make a decision.
            "Is the door locked?" he asks Capwell in a hurry. He nods in answer. 
            "What do I need to do to get you into Maggie's dreamland?" 
    Capwell understands now what Mulder is trying to do and turns around. He jerks some plugs out of equipment next to the bed I was lying in and tells Mulder he needs to get his bed next to Maggie's. I hear people standing behind the door, getting ready to kick it in. And I tell Mulder with my hands they need to hurry up. Mulder is now attaching patches to Capwell's head and I hear a hushed `three, two, one' behind the door. Right as the door opens, Mulder plugs in the last plug and I see Capwell drift off to sleep.
            The next couple of minutes are a whirlwind. People run in, shout, secure the area. I recognize Colton's voice shouting commands and I feel an arm around me, gently but firmly pushing me towards the door. It takes a moment to find my composure again, but then I start to resist, catching on to what's going on. I turn around to see who's pushing me and I look into Jennifer Stradford's worried face. 
            "Are you all right agent Scully?" she gently asks.
            I nod and walk away from her pushing hand. 
            "Who are here?"
            "Colton, Johnson and me. And three agents from the Special Forces."
            I look around and see Mulder still standing next to Capwell with Colton walking towards him. What Mulder did was wrong of course. He should have held Capwell talking until the reinforcement was there to capture him. But wrong in FBI-eyes isn't always wrong in a human's eye and I know Mulder did what he thought was right.
            I walk up to them just in time to hear Colton demanding an explanation of what the hell is going on.
            "He forced him too," I say before Mulder has the chance to answer. 
            "Capwell had him at gunpoint and forced him to hook him up. He tried to stall it, but unfortunately you were a couple of seconds too late and he had to plug him in."
            "Plug him into what? What the hell is going on? And also, we wouldn't have been too late if he..." he looks at Mulder with the greatest of disdain, "...if he had told us, like he should have, where the hell he was going."
            Suddenly it's all too much. Mulder dead, Mulder alive, his story about the dreamland, Colton's offensive and rude attitude throughout the case, I can't take it anymore. If there's anyone that screwed up in his case, it's him. In my most threatening voice I whisper: "Mulder may have made a mistake there. I'm sure he had the best of reasons, which he'll explain later, but let's not forget you made some mistakes as well. Mistakes that could hurt your career way more than any mistakes Mulder may have made can hurt his. So unless you want to send your career down the sewer, I suggest you back off and let agent Stradford handle this crime scene."
            "Are you threatening me?" he says in an extremely surprised voice.
            "I might very well be," I answer. Then I turn and walk towards agent Stradford, knowing Mulder is following me with a surprised yet proud look on his face. 
    

~ 

Everything went so fast I am just now catching up. I found her. I got her back. The feeling is unbelievable. Every couple of seconds I turn to check that she's still there. I touch her every chance I get, just to know she's real and not a figment of my imagination. After Scully's amazing confrontation with Colton, which still has me beaming with pride, we left with one of the ambulances that were transporting Capwell, his wife and his victims. Scully continued to amaze me. After what she had been through, and I've only heard parts of it, she continued like nothing had happened. I admire that in her, her ability to just go on when she has to, to not let things get to her until she has the time and possibility. It worries me too though, and every time I check to see if she's still there, I check how she's feeling as well. If her eyes aren't haunted like they were when I met her in her dreams. If her hand isn't trembling when she's giving commands to the doctors in the hospital. I try to hear if her voice isn't cracking as she tells them the best way to help these women and patiently listens to the doctors' disbelief. 
    
    
            The slightest glance in her eyes, I notice, the tiniest of trembles, the smallest of cracks. They tell me what no one else can see and what took me years, that she is not fine. That she needs comfort and rest and a sense of safety. That this is indeed getting to her. She seems so strong though that I get a lump in my throat when I look at her and my heart skips a beat. Though I suspect that has nothing to do with her being strong right now. 
            I check again and she's still standing there. They finally listen and now, when she thinks no one is looking, the shadows fall over her eyes. I walk over to her and put my hand softly on her right hip. I lean over to her left ear.
            "Let's go to the hotel," I whisper. 
            She looks up to me with a face telling me she doesn't need to, she's fine. I give her a soft smile. Her eyes look down and she leans into me a bit more. 
            "Okay," she answers.
    

~ 

My hotel door opens with a soft squeak. I barely have the energy to push it open enough to enter, but fortunately Mulder is right by my side to help me as he's been ever since he was returned to me. Or better yet, since we found each other again, though that doesn't cover it either. Only now, on the way back from the hospital I started to realize what had happened. So much. I still need to see him every couple of seconds, touch him every chance I get to know he's really alive and here, with me. He feels the same I think, because he hasn't been more than a three feet away from me. 
    
    
            I now feel the consequences of the lasts couple of hours, days, months in my mind. I needed to be strong and hold myself together to face Colton and help those poor women. I needed to be strong for Mulder, I thought, but now I'm not so sure anymore. It's hard to be strong all the time, to never show what you're really feeling and I've been doing that for years in front of everyone, even Mulder. Though less and less every year that went by. 
            I'm so tired now I wonder why I'm still keeping up my boundaries in front of him. Why is it so important he perceives me as strong when deep down I know he sees right through this faade and he doesn't think less of me? Maybe it's time to let him in, like I've wanted to for quite some time now. Maybe I won't be as tired then. I think of all the resolutions I made when Mulder was dead. All the things I wished I had done differently and how it's so easy now to fall back into old patterns.
            Mulder gently ushers me to the bed, softly ordering me to sit down. I obey, thankful that for once I don't need to be in charge and that I trust him enough to let him take care of me. Why haven't I before? He's trusted me to take care of him for years now. 
            "You need to sleep," he states and I know he's right. For a moment I feel my innate impulse to argue with him arise inside of me, but as soon as I become aware of it, it's gone. I nod. For a moment he seems embarrassed and I'm surprised. What is there for him to be embarrassed about?
            "You eh...you need to get undressed."
            I smile, I understand.
            "I do," I answer plainly.
            "I eh...you...I'll get your pajamas."
            I nod again and stay where I am. It's time to break at least some boundaries down.
            He takes a surprisingly long time, searching my suitcase for my pajamas, of which I'm quite sure I put them on top. I smile to myself and feel my eyes close. I shake my head to keep them open for a little longer, when I hear Mulder's voice next to me.
            "Do you eh...need ehm...help?"
            I nod once more. Enjoying the feeling of him taking care of me while he's trying his hardest not to look my way as he helps me out of my clothes.
            "Thank you," I say with some effort, as I'm almost asleep now.
            He helps me under the blankets. 
            "Hold me?" I managed to say just before I fall asleep. And he does.
    

Chapter 15 

I've never woken up very peaceful. Sleep has been hard ever since I can remember, maybe since Samantha, but probably even before that. This morning isn't any different. I can't remember how many times I woke up to see if she was still lying next to me. Her eyes closed and asleep so deep it surprises me. The last couple of days still haunt my every thought and I can't close my eyes without having it flash back to me. For her, the nightmare that was her coma is another reason to fear sleep, but it doesn't seem to bother her. I'm glad. 
    
    
            She asks me to hold her so I did. A little hesitant, but with pleasure.  She wanted me to undress her and that was harder. Embarrassed, but I'm not sure of what. Maybe she caught me by surprise, it's not like her to let me take care of her like that, to make herself so vulnerable to me, or to anyone. I couldn't help smiling when I lay down next to, my head on the same pillow, so close I could smell her. And she smells lovely. As she drifted of to sleep I sniffed a couple of times and it brought tears to my eyes, I was glad she didn't see. For they were tears of pure love. Or maybe I did want her to see them. 
            I'm grinning, laughing at the hopeless romantic I never thought I could be. She start to make little noises. Familiar noises she always makes sleeping and they make my grin broaden. The first time I woke up suddenly scared that it had all been a dream, though part of it had been, I found myself holding her. I had pulled my arms away, scared to do anything she might not want to, that she might've asked me to in a state of vulnerability where she wasn't accountable for her words. She hummed and turned a bit. Then she had opened her eyes and asked me where I was going. 
            "Nowhere", I had answered and she had looked reassured in the thought that I wasn't leaving her. 
            "Then hold me Mulder," she had replied and with a small smile she had turned on her side again and I laid down, my arms wrapped tightly around her once more.
            I look by my side now, where she's started to wake up. Opening her eyes a bit and then quickly closing them because the light is so bright, she turns to me and nestles her head against my chest. My heart skips a beat. With my arms around her, I finally feel I can protect her from the world outside. And she finally lets me. Maybe I have woken up a bit more peaceful than normally.
    

~ 

His smell all around me. His touch embracing me. I feel so safe, so happy that I'm able to ban all things bad from my mind for one more moment. I listen to his heart beating and it sooths me. Boom boom boom boom. Quicker than usual, I think. Like I listen to his heart beating every day. Like it's the most normal thing in the world to be lying here so close to him. I would like to think that me lying next to him is what is making the heart pump so fast. 
    
    
            "You're heart's going fast," I state, or mumble rather.
            "Oh, is it?" he says in a mock surprised tone. 
            "Mmm, yeah," I mumble back, "it makes me wonder if you've secretly sneaked out of bed to order me a big breakfast." Or if you're just as nervous now lying so close to me as I am, I silently add.
            He grins. And I know he's going to get up now and ask me what I want for breakfast and I don't want that. I don't want to get out of bed yet and face the grown-up world with all it's awful aspects. So I gather my courage and add what I was only thinking.
            His grinning stops and his heart rate fastens, or at least I think it does. 
            "Or that could be it," he says, half kidding, half not, unsure what I meant by that. 
            I regretfully pull my head out of its safe warm little nest and look him in the eyes, my heart pumping in my throat at the nerve I'm showing. I don't know what to say though. I look at him, with his half grin and his brown eyes full of wonder. He doesn't know either. He's so...the fast beat of my heart is suddenly accompanied by a strange feeling in my stomach and before I know it, my head tilts and my body stretches so my mouth will meet his. It's a soft kiss, short also, but it pulsates through my body like nothing else. His face is now one of pure surprise and fear maybe. He looks down, pulling his eyes away from mine and for a moment I think the horrible thought that I might have interpreted the signs wrong. 
            "You're...ehm...you're..." he starts, but I quiet him with another kiss. His attempt at a sentence is enough for me to understand what he means. He isn't saying he doesn't feel this, he's saying he wants to be sure I feel it. And I do, so much that I find it hard to breath. I let this kiss last a little longer, savoring it, though it's still a gentle kiss, lips to lips. It's slow, not very adventurous and it's me. I smile at this thought and that breaks it. He looks at me so insecure and hesitant that the atmosphere becomes loaded with expectations, emotions and long neglected needs.
            "Good morning," I say with a smile to lighten everything up.
            "Good morning," he replies with his hoarse morning voice I love so much. "How did you sleep?"
            "Good, surprisingly. Maybe it helped you were here."
            He smiles at me. "You think it did?"
            I nod.
            We both smile at each other in silence. After a while he breaks it. 
            "We need to get up."
            I guess he sees the disappointment on my face, cause he immediately adds "but I guess we can stay here for a little while."
            I nod.
            "Let's do that," and I cuddle up to him again.
    

~ 

Statements were taken, the loose ends of the case wrapped up. I insisted on going to the hospital to see Capwell and Scully went along. He is still lying there next to her. Hooked up by a machine that has filled the staff with wonder. They hadn't ever seen anything like it. The monitors expressing their thoughts are turned off. Maybe they had thought it invaded their privacy too much. Scully hasn't entered the room with me. She'd seen the doctor that had been in charge when Capwell's victims were admitted and she went over to him to ask how they were doing. I look at them. She comes in a couple of minutes later and all that time I have been staring at him. We stand there together in silence for a while. 
    
    
            "They haven't woken up," I state breaking the quiet of the room.
            "No, they haven't," she agrees.
            "Why do you think?" 
            "I don't know. Do you?"
            I remain silent. He's still lying there next to her. I hate him for what he has done. All those women who might never wake up again. Scully, what he did to her, the nightmare he put her through. I would want to kill him just for that. Yet I helped him. He had a final wish and I helped him grant that. I'm still wondering why. It was a moment's choice, decided in a second. So why was my instinct to help him so strong? I went into the dreamland like he wanted me too, but not for him, for Scully, always for Scully. A thought enters my conscious mind. Maybe I helped him for her. Immediately I doubt it. Helping him for her, what did it do for her? But suddenly it's clear. It was me I recognized. All the way, I couldn't separate me from him. I knew his need, his agonizing pain over Maggie. I knew it so well that his hurt made my heart clench, my throat constrict. I helped him because it's what I owe Scully. I need to show her what I would do for her and that includes helping him despite of my own pain. Because of my own pain. It's all for her. It's still not clear, but knowing this is enough. If I make a split second decision and I make it for her, it's enough. I look at her, staring at the two beds next to each other.
            "Do you think her dreams are haunted like yours?"
            "I don't know. But...when I was dreaming, when I slept, I would see her in my dreams. She would be there, calm, comfortable it seemed, in her place, when all I wanted was to never wake up again." She keeps silent again.
            "Maybe..." she starts after a while, "maybe you need to be haunted to wake up. I didn't want to be there. Not that I knew I was anywhere, but I didn't want to be me anyway. Maybe you need to be haunted to wake up."
            I think about it and then nod. 
            "But why were you haunted and she isn't?"
            "Maybe I had unfinished business," she softly answers and looks up to me.
            "Maybe you had."
            I find my hand searching for hers. I want to pull back, like I've always done, ever since my hand, my body had a mind of it's own around her, but I don't. She kissed me this morning. I held her last night and she kissed me this morning. Twice. Maybe I can hold her hand. 
            Hers squeezes mine when they find each other and we walk out of the room together, more so than we've ever been.
    

~ 

It's the motions of the case ending and maybe Mulder that have made me forget about Fitzgerald and Stradford for a while. I feel guilty for that. Fitzgerald deserves more than that, he deserves some afterthought. And Stradford, Jennifer, she...I can imagine all too well how she must be feeling and she deserves some comfort from me, and us, the only people that can really understand her. I admire her. When I take a moment to think about it, I realize I really admire her. 
    
    
            She found us, for one thing. She went through Mulder's cell phone records, called in an old buddy who knows his computers to help her trace the secret number he had last been calling. From what I heard from Mulder, the three weren't at all pleased by how easily someone could find them. She pressured them into telling her were Mulder went, which wasn't too hard since they had been worrying sick themselves. Not that they would ever tell him, or even each other. 
            She was the one that ran the crime scene with Colton's help instead of following his orders. And she did all this with her partner just dying days before that. I couldn't have and I really admired her for it. I told her so when we met at the police station that night.
            "Thank you," she plainly answers.
            "How are you doing?"
            "I keep busy."
            "Yeah, you do."
            "It's hard, I try not to think too much about tomorrow yet. But it will probably hit me full force then."
            I nod. Tomorrow morning we fly back to DC, tomorrow afternoon John Fitzgerald will be buried with every honor an FBI-agent can get at his funeral.
            "You'll get through. You got through these couple of days remarkably, you saved me and agent Mulder. You can save yourself. It'll just take time." I smile at her.
            "I guess." She is quiet for a short while. "Agent Scully, what would you do when it had been agent Mulder?"
            She doesn't know about my dreams, my nightmares. So young still, unspoiled. She lost a partner. That's awful, that's the worst that can happen to you as an FBI-agent and it's horrible as a person, but it's not the same. It's not the same as losing your life partner. 
            "I would cry, and then I would stop crying, because he would want me to move on. His memory wouldn't fade, but the pain would and I would go on," I lie.
            A little smile appears on her face. 
    

"Maybe I can do that," she softly says. "I think you can." And then I put my arms around her. "It's going to be all right," I say, and I'm thinking back to my dream, and how it was never going to be all right with Mulder gone and I'm glad it's not the same for her. 

~ 

We're early for a chance, waiting outside Skinner's office to be called in. Colton isn't here yet, or maybe he saw us waiting and quickly disappeared around the corner. That could be it as well. I don't know what to expect from this meeting. Mulder answered he didn't know yet, what he was going to say when asked and we haven't had a chance to discuss it with Colton. Skinner's secretary has been giving us a doubtful face ever since we came in. I can almost see her asking herself what we've been up to this time. I bet she would want to join this meeting more than anything. Exactly when the meeting should be beginning, Colton comes into the waiting room. Trying his hardest to ignore us, he walks to the other side of the room and starts studying a particularly hideous painting. Five minutes later we finally hear Skinner's voice cracking over the intercom. We're already halfway through the door before the secretary has had the chance to tell us we're expected. 

~ 

"Agents, please sit."  
The three of them both grab a chair. Mulder the one to my right, Colton the one to my left, as far a way from each other as possible. Scully is caught in the middle. I can't be entirely sure, but I think I see her shifting her chair more to the right. Two sides to every story seems uncomfortably literal here. "Word got to me there was some uncertainty about leadership in this case." They all shift in their chairs uncomfortably. Familiar glances shoot between Mulder and Scully. Finally someone decides to answer. "There was, Sir, but as soon as we realized it we arranged it between us and we had no more trouble," Mulder says like it's costing him a considerable amount of effort to say this. I look at the other two. Colton nods enthusiastically yes and Scully a more surprised one, but both of them agree. I don't believe a single word they're saying. I know all of them too well. Mulder wouldn't let something like that just pass and Colton, if I judge him right, he won't have played it very fair. "You all agree on this?"  
Again they answer in agreement.   
"Then I'm sorry for the unclear information I gave you all." I keep quiet for a minute to let them think about it one last time. They look uncomfortable, ready to run out if I give them permission. I don't yet though. "This hasn't been an easy case for either of you. First agent Fitzgerald's tragic death and agent Scully's subsequent kidnapping, it must have been demanding. You all get a week of paid leave to recuperate from these events." A small smile from Scully is all the acknowledgement I get. "Furthermore, I want to congratulate you, agent Mulder, on your successful conclusion of this case, with what I've heard the indispensable help of agent Stradford. I'll congratulate her personally at a later time when she has had some time to recover from the shock." For the first time during this conversation, he smiles. A bit smug too it seems. "I'll see you this afternoon."  
They rightfully interpret this as an excuse to leave and they do, immediately. I sit back to ponder their strange behavior. A silent deal must have been made there. What I heard wasn't the story of a peaceful cooperation, but I won't press it. Chances of losing Mulder and Scully are too big, since they, he probably, must have stepped over the line a couple of times to have him not tell on Colton. As for Colton, he might not have to face any disciplinary action, but he'll be punished in his own right. He screwed up this case, there's no way around it and he can forget any dreams of a bright and shining FBI career now. I smile to myself. They do spice up my day, though not always in a happy way. 

~ 

It's pouring at his funeral and it fits. All the honor they are burying him with is unfitting of the way he died. Shot in his back in a dark alley while getting Chinese takeout, there is hardly a sadder way to go. There is no honor in that. The rain pours on to remind us all how easily you can slip away. How easily you can be caught of guard and shot in the back. It's humbling. Everyone is here. A group of heart-broken people I don't know, with in the middle an older couple holding hands. His parents probably. It's the first time I think about them. Sad really how I never realized he must have had parents that are heart-broken now. And Skinner, Colton and Stradford of course, even detective Johnson flew over. A lot of other people from the FBI are here as well, young agents mostly, fresh out of the academy. I see the fear in their eyes, the uneasiness in how they deal with Stradford, the way they look at me, accusing me almost. Go on a case with Spooky Mulder and you die, see what happens. I don't care though. I look at Scully. Her umbrella over her head. She's looking at Stradford, to see how she's dealing with it all. None of the uneasiness I see in her young colleagues is present in her. I can't help thinking what a great mother she would have been. 
    
    
            The service is ending. People are leaving. We walk over to Fitzgerald's parents and offer our condolences, but they don't seem to really hear them. An older woman, I guess her mother, puts her arms around Stradford and leads her away. I see her turn her head around once more. A last goodbye maybe. After a few minutes we are the only ones left. The only sound, the rain that is still pouring down.
            "He shouldn't have died, it was so unnecessary," she says after a couple of minutes.
            "He just got in the way," I agree.
            "I know..."
            We both fall silent.
            "It's raining."
            "It sure is."
            "Remember?"
            "Of course I do." 
    I take her umbrella out of her hands and fold it up. Then I do the same with mine. We stand there getting soaked and it feels good. The water reminds of how alive I am and she too. 
            "He was a good man," she says.
            "Yeah he was," I say. Then we both look up at the dark sky and the droplets falling from there. Then we both laugh. We remember.
    

Epilogue 
    
    
            I look in her eyes and they say the same as mine do. It is time. But we have time now. We have received the gift of time once again and there's no reason to waist it. I, we, don't want to rush this. We want to savior it. 
            "You're here," I say stupidly, but she knows what I feel. She feels the same.
            "We are."
            We could say so much now, but we've never really been ones for words. We began with talk and began to get to know each other. But words are not sufficient, can never be. So we perfected non-verbal communication. Or at least we worked on that. Never succeeded, though we came quite close. And now we're here and we are going to shed all words tonight. We've tried before. God we have. But it was always limited by our self-imposed restrictions. Only glances, looks, body language. Both limited in how we expressed ourselves and what we express, always careful not to cross any boundaries, even though the boundaries were blurring anyway as the years went by. 
            I, and I think she does too, hope that the last inhibitions and the last obstacles between us can be overcome. And why not? I've doubted, I've really doubted, and not nearly as much as she did, I know now. But it makes sense, it has become clear. Our options aren't as restricted anymore. I can now show her my concern by a little touch on her shoulder, by stroking her hair out of her face and she can see it for what it is, without all the other distractions. I don't touch her to make her feel insecure or because I think her to be that. She knows now that when I touch I do it to reach out, to make her aware, to help ground her and put things in perspective, the way she does for me. A touch is now a part of us. Something integrated. Like the rest of our relationship. Something that proclaims the equality of us, for which we have fought so hard. Both against each other and against ourselves. And it has been quite a fight. But now she's here, and so am I. Finally.
            I touch her face. Stroke it languidly down the side of it, just grasping her ear on the way down. I look at her and it's like I'm looking at her for the first time. It's the strangest thing. You can see people every day and then one time you look at them and you see them. Really see them. And suddenly their faces are strange, unfamiliar and you wonder how you ever recognized them before, since this face is unlike any you've ever seen, only bearing the slightest resemblance to the face you thought you knew so well. It happens at the most unexpected moments, maybe at a meeting, or when you pass that person on the street by coincidence, or when you have an argument with Skinner's secretary for the zillionth time. It's somewhat unsettling and frightening that you can look at someone so many times, but only then really see them. 
            Somehow I never thought this would happen with her. After all this time I must know her face, right? But now I look at her and I see someone new. And she is beautiful. Her face shines and gives compassion and trust. After everything that has happened. Still. And for all that she is beautiful.
            "You are beautiful."
            She brushes my tears softly away with the tips of her fingers and again the touch says it all. She leans forward at exactly the same time I do and our lips connect in a kiss. Real, raw, careful, passionate. Words can't describe it. All those complex feelings that could never be expressed by words are all there and I know that the last of our inhibitions and boundaries will disappear like all the pain that was hidden in our subconscious. Not forgotten. Just not there anymore. And I'm free, we both are. We can be happy now. 
    
    

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Title: **cogito ergo sum part 2**  
Author: Lisa  
Details: 157k  ·  PG-13  ·  Standalone  ·  03/08/06  ·   Email/Website      
Gossamer Category(Keywords): X-File   [Romance, UST, Friendship, Angst]     
Characters: Mulder, Scully     
Pairings: Mulder/Scully UST, RST   
SUMMARY: A serial killer, someone from the past and a lot of angst push Mulder ans Scully into new places 


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